“Hamsa” Thesis Film

SYNOPSIS

A young Israeli girl is oblivious to the historical conflict she lives in. On a trip to the market with her mother, she is reminded to fear “the other”. However, when chaos strikes she realizes the people she was once afraid of are not so different.

When faced with a common danger, humanity teaches the people of this world that one must put his/her differences aside because we are all the same.

WHY HAMSA?

“Hamsa” is an Arabic word (pronounce kh-am-sa). It’s literal meaning is the number Five for it looks like is a hand (thus the five fingers) and is often depicted as an amulet popular throughout the Middle East and North Africa and commonly used in jewelry and wall hangings.

It is used as a symbol of protection predominantly within the Muslim and Jewish communities, to provide defense against the evil eye.

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@hamsathesis

MEET THE HAMSA TEAM! (The Habibis)

(Left) Daniela Dwek: Director, Character TD, FX TD, Story
(Middle) Maya Mendonça: Producer, Lead Animator, Previs, Editor
(Right) Chrisy Baek: Production Coordinator, Environment TD, Lighting TD

Color Script by Felicia Chen

Environments by Chrisy Baek

Inspired by the Old City of Jerusalem. Here is work in progress by Chrisy Baek. Everything started with research and planning. After gathering reference, Chrisy blocked out the set to accommodate the story as well as be true to the location. Click here to see more of her process.

Characters by Daniela Dwek

Just like with the environment, the first step with characters is gathering references and putting them together to create individual personalities. Daniela created characters from references to be as true as they can be to the culture the story is about. The characters are influenced by both Jewish and Palestinian Israeli Cultures. Click here to see more of her process.

(Left to Right) Meet Ora, Tikva, and Nour

Rigging by Daniela Dwek

Daniela asked me to animate a face calisthenics to get a better understanding of Tikvah’s various emotions. This was also very helpful to see how the rig affects the groom. Lastly, I showed this test to my team of animators in order for them to understand the appeal we want for Tikvah, this was she can stay consistent throughout the film. Click here to see more of her process.

Animation by Maya Mendonca

Here is a breakdown of some shots that I animated including the reference I took and the different passes of animation.

Crowd by Daniela Dwek & Maya Mendonca

Here is some of Daniela’s process for the crowd:

She started off with 4 rigs with a base body type ( Male and Female Stout and Thin).
Then she sculpted 6 face variations per rig, which gives her at least 24 basic crowds to work with.
To further add diversity to the crowd, she made what she calls an ID Control. This gives our team the control to personalize clothes and various accessories.
This helped us art direct the crowd rather than randomize it and risking having multiple same characters in one scene.
She is also planning to vary up color and patterns on the clothes and skin to further vary the crowd.

My process with crowd animation involved using mocap animation on the crowd rigs made by Daniela. As much as I would have loved animating the crowd, this process was a lot faster and I was able to learn how to manage mo-cap animation.

My plan for where the crowd will be before the chaos and what they will do.

My plan for where the crowd will be after the chaos and what they will do.

I used the proxy models of crowd from previs as placeholders.I downloaded animations from Mixamo and used the Time Editor in Maya to combine and merge animations such as walking and stopping. Then, I baked the animation.I attached a locator to the j… — I used the proxy models of crowd from previs as placeholders.
I downloaded animations from Mixamo and used the Time Editor in Maya to combine and merge animations such as walking and stopping. Then, I baked the animation.
I attached a locator to the joints with the animation and placed each crowd person where I planned.

Using the MoCap Matcher from Advanced Skeleton, I matched the animation from the proxy model onto Daniela’s crowd rig.Lastly, I cleaned up some mo-cap to make sure the characters were not penetrating any geo in the environment or themself. — Using the MoCap Matcher from Advanced Skeleton, I matched the animation from the proxy model onto Daniela’s crowd rig.
Lastly, I cleaned up some mo-cap to make sure the characters were not penetrating any geo in the environment or themself.

Previsualization by Maya Mendonca

This reel features how I did previs for the chaotic scene in Hamsa as well as the reuniting of Ora and Tikva in the tunnel.