Happy Ship proudly participated in the production of the first real Dutch Science Fiction movie, "Zephyr". Invited by director Dennis Kleijn, chief editor Synco Scholvinck and Guido Elenbaas for this NFTA 2002 (The Dutch Academy for Movies and Television) production, we considered it an opportunity not to be missedL: Science Fiction from the cold grounds! Planet X F/X would take care of the compositing & fx and Happy Ship providing the 3D FX & animations. (still, watching Science Fiction in your native language takes a little getting used to :) .

Zephyr will be broadcasted on Dutch National television (by BNN) on the 20th of june 2003, 22.50h, on Nederland 3. For the (slightly outdated) first promo and some more details you can check the official site at zephyr-film.nl . You can download the extended special FX trailer right here.

The Story
Around the desolate planet Ma Divak, an enormous battle has been fought. The remains are still clearly visible from the surface, and hazardous to any space-travel to and from the planet: a layer of debris encompassing the whole planet. Isdor, the lead character, is a member of the crew that is trying to clear the field, towing the huge chunks of ex-battleships into the atmosphere to burn them away. A hazardous job, in a strangely claustrofobic part of space, all to make the planet suitable for future colonisation again. During one cleaning operation, Isdor is confronted with a shimmer from his past, leading him on a quest to his personal history...

Making it
The production of this movie adhered to top-notch standards. Live-action was recorded extremely crisp on HD-CineAlta, and all shots received digital treatment. There were incredibly detailed spaceships mixed with live-action and the other way around, labourious cameratracking and compositing, whole landscapes created in post-production, maquettes, and of course there was the seemingly endless layer of debris in which most of the action takes place, as well as explosion effects and meteorites, and a crashlanding to top it all off. A true challenge all the way around. More details on the making of the film will follow in the near future, so you'll have to make do with some pictures for now :)

Animago award 2003 At the fmx/03 in Stuttgart (DL) Zephyr has won, 5th place overall, out of a 1140, an Animago award 2003! That means the first statuette is a fact! :) Planet X F/X and Happy Ship also won first place in their respective categories for compositing/education and animation/professional.

More facts here

The interior of the cockpit on the set. Besides obviously having to fill in the blue windows, a lot of detail was added to the intrument panel in post.

The actors in the cockpit were shot in the set above, the digital cockpit had to match the measurements of the real one perfectly.

Crewlife on a giant beach on Texel (a wadden-Island in the Netherlands).

An early render of the Transport Vessel. The shot where it would appear like this in the background was cut from the film in the end.

The official poster.