Filmmaking Focus

How does it feel to win a slew of awards for the very first film that you’ve ever created in your life? Just ask up and coming filmmaker Chris Mais whose animated film, Smile, earned more than a dozen filmmaking awards at festivals across the country and even in cyberspace.

Mais, born and raised in Long Beach, California, owes his success to a solid filmmaking education that he received at Chapman University in Orange, CA. “I felt prepared at graduation because I left with a profound enthusiasm for my career endeavors. That is all the preparedness anyone needs, just pure gut enthusiasm for filmmaking,” said Mais.

Family also plays a vital role in Mais’ success. “They are a great test audience and gauge of if you are doing something correctly,” praised Mais. “An honest audience teaches you what is effective and what is not.”

When beginning the work for Smile, Mais believed that he would have a finished product within a few months. Boy! Was he wrong. “Little did I know I would work everyday on it for nearly two and a half years!” The project began in September of 2003 and Mais says that he spent most of this time at the computer creating the film, while it only took him 6 days of shooting background plates, and only 4 hours at the motion capture studio to bring it all together.

“Filmmaking is frustrating because it is so easy to make mistakes,” explains Mais. “It is also tough coming up with ideas that you will have to stick with and believe in for years. You can’t try this or that just for the heck of it as much as you could in painting or drawing.”

Publicity for Smile describes the film as “the story of Smile, a lonely but caring happy face toy who befriends a happy face balloon. Their friendship and lives become threatened as a jealous Pirate seeks to destroy them both. The menacing deeds of Pirate lead Smile on a daring rescue mission to save the balloon from the dangers of the outside world. Smile must use his courage and wit if he is to save his friend from the sword of the evil Pirate.”

The cinematography of Smile was accomplished using a variety of formats including 16mm film, Digital 24p, Digital still photography and fully rendered 3D environments. “This multi-format approach allowed for maximum creativity in the editing room,” said Mais. “If an appropriate background plate could not be found to suit the story, an environment was created in 3D to match the look of the live-action plates.”

Following the success of Smile, Mais is in no hurry to begin future projects and is concentrating on finishing grad school. Mais is currently enrolled in a graduate animation program at UCLA where he will earn a Masters Degree in Animation. He says that he is going to use his first year in the program to come up with a good idea for a second film and plans to put off production for another year after that. “I am in no hurry.”

“With Smile, it came out better than I ever could have hoped it could,” said Mais. “That was a very pleasant surprise.”

To find out more about Mais’ film, Smile, visit www.smilethefilm.com.