Clank Sinatra Sings "My Way" is an animated version of an AI sings video, where a B1 Battle-droid from Star Wars sings the classic Frank Sinatra song. People have lovingly started referring to this droid as Clank Sinatra.
The project is at about 90% complete, There is a twist and/or turn in it and I will be spoiler-ing it in this post. So if you can, I would recommend waiting till its complete in the near future.
But I still want to talk about it a little...
Here is the original video by BroodiestBoar54:
In particular it was a comment someone left under the video that really captured my imagination:
Using what I had learnt over the past year on the apprenticeship at Hollowpixel, I felt capable of accomplishing this project. So I set out to go through a pipeline and complete this project from start to finish.
Render from the un-composited version of the final Shot
Inspired by the comment, I decided to add my own twist in the video.
I liked the idea that the droid was hallucinating that he was singing this song to a loving audience, but then his much sadder reality would then be revealed at the end that he was singing to no one but himself.
I made a list of the Assets I would need for this project:
- A B1 Battle-droid Character Rig
- A Stage Set
- A "Real World" Set
- Props such as the mic and the mic stand.
I had a vision for how I would like the Stage set to be laid out. I imagined it as a lonely stage in the middle of a black void with lights all around illuminating the stage.
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So... that's what I did
For the other set I knew using camera tricks would be the way to go to get clean details, so I went online to find suitable images and edited them in Krita to make Matt paintings for the background of the "Real World"set.
The foreground rocks were sourced from photo-scans.
Viewport render of the "Real World" set
I found a free rigged B1 character online under a Creative Commons licence. It was created by Eknightger on Sketchfab, I've made sure to credit him in the credits of the animation anyway, as it is a great model.
I added a little bow tie on to Clank to give him a little more... class.
I also modelled the Mic and Microphone stand, Which completed the rest of the assets that were needed for the project.
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So it was finally time to start blocing out the project, and figuring out what shots I would like to do. Which was a very fun process experimenting with different camera angles and poses for Clank. I wanted to show him building confidence as he sings, so the camera starts with him small and slowly as he sings the camera starts looking up to him as he starts to own the song and be proud of the life he's lived.
