Production Information

Ectype’s End was completed over a period of one and a half months near the end of 2006. It was to be Rhubarb Zoo’s first finished film, and was originally planned to run for 1-2 minutes.

An unusual approach was taken when it came to bringing the story to life - J and Dane first roamed the streets, taking photographs of as many pipes, ducts and machines as they could, along with pictures of grass, trees, and strange plants. They also explored the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT), taking photos of various steam-age contraptions.

With this sizable library of textures and objects complete, the task of converting these into usable backgrounds was tackled. Much cropping, colourscrewing and digital painting was needed to combine images from separate photographs into a cohesive whole.

A combination of classical cell animation and digital movement was used to animate 3C70 and the various creatures needed. All of the backgrounds and characters were composited in 3D space, giving the illusion of depth and allowing realistic camera movement.

As J animated and composited the project, Dane worked on the music and sound effects. Armed with a variety of workshop tools, bottles, toys, VST synths and his voice he created the cartoony soundscapes needed to evoke the feeling of a clockwork world and the characters that inhabit it.

The final two weeks of the project went by in a haze of 14 hour days, with such intense hours needed to complete the project in time for Auckland’s Armageddon Festival 2006. Rhubarb Zoo went on to sell all 250 Limited Edition DVD’s of the film at the festival, making their first public event a resounding success.