works-highlights – Kai Tattersall

Heaven

Heaven

Being surrounded by an animated forest.

⸙𓍊𓋼˚ ១ 。✩*⋆ ⍋*☪⋆⍋⋆*✩

This 20-minute project refined the visual style of previous projects and expanded it into an immersive world. Filmed on a 360-degree camera, “Heaven” proved to be an extremely ambitious project to turn into an animation. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our crew, the final project premiered in IMAX and in VR.

Behind the scenes available to watch HERE.

Sapwood played by Katherine Montes.

Directed by Kai Tattersall.
Animation Director: Valerie Jackson.
Written by Valerie Jackson, Kai Tattersall.
Produced by Diya Correa.
Performance Director: Max Von Der Horst.
Director of Photography : Partho Gupte.
Production Designer: Madison Kloeber.
Costume Designer: Cas Pryer.
Props by Madison Kloeber & Ross Kloeber.
Character Design by Maximilian Salow.
Sound Design by Cassie Howell.
Sound Mixed by Cassie Howell & Kai Tattersall.
Music Written by Sebastian Sack.
Music Processed by Jason O'Connor & Kai Tattersall.
Singers: Daniel Leese, Koji Sakano, Hannah McDonnel.
First Score Session Engineer: Ashley Fulton.
Second Score Session Engineer: Kai Tattersall.

Casting Directors: Max Von Der Horst, Diya Correa.
Assistant Animation: Max Von Der Horst.
Sound Captured by: Ethan Michaels, Valerie Jackson.

Faculty Advisor: Mike Patterson.
Special Thanks: Eric and Charlotte Pottle, Erick Ziegler, John Rosenberg, Andrew Leist, Dan Wolf, Miho and Simon Tattersall, Cheryl and Jay Jackson.

Liminal Places

The feed is a place of friendship, love, community, and fairytale. Everyone is surrounded by an interested audience and stories curated just for you.

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Liminal Places utilizes artificial intelligence to create fully artificial voices. Manual editing allowed controlled intonations and pacing. Each voice relates to a person in my life.

Environments were constructed using photogrammetry. Augmenting the scans allowed for top-to-bottom production design and the visualization of impossible structures. Locations were collected from my hometown.

The social media feed combined fiction and reality. Sampled captions were modified to curate a realistic selection of diction and content. “User-strings” were created to fit each post.

Granular synthesis created the ambience and score. Live modulation of an original score married visuals and sound. The score was controlled through a rigged-joystick.

This is a USC junior thesis. A big thanks to Madison Kloeber, Valerie Jackson, and Jason O’Connor for their invaluable contributions. Also, many thanks to the amazing faculty: Amy Reynolds Reed, Brad Barnes, Dianne Farrington, John Rosenberg, Navid McIlhargey, and Rich Hyland.

Once Upon A Strawberry Meeting

An animated slice of life.

✿ஜீ۞ஜீ✿•.¸¸.•*`*•.•ஜீ☼۞☼

A new compositional method improved the quality of the animation compared to earlier projects. The video is a compilation of both live-action and A.I.-assisted animation. Still, a bulk of the work relies on animators.

Farmer played by Max Von der Horst.
Created by Kai Tattersall.
Animation directed by Valerie Jackson.

Tell Me What You Think

Exploring a digital playground is a perfect way to meditate on your thoughts, free from the sensationalism of the real world, and curated just for you.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Tell Me What You Think utilizes motion tracking for first-person point-of-view. The process involved some couple hundred sticky notes and detailed choreography. The cinematography was done by Anna Waldron. Valerie Jackson dressed the environmental elements.

Elements of sound were mapped to a keyboard and played live. The sample bank includes home videos, synthetic sounds, foley, and other sound effect libraries. Narration was done by Vivian Gray.

This is a USC project. A big thanks to my amazing producer, Partho Gupte, and my instructor, Brad Barnes.

Hand of God

“I'm going to the river where the current rushes by… Hand of God coming from thе sky.”

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis “Hand of God”. Goliath Enterprises Limited, 2021.

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Hand of God uses artificial intelligence to interpolate animation from a keyframe. Made using all original content. Written and acted by Jason O’Connor. Animation by Valerie Jackson.