"Bartimaeus: Ptolemy's Gate" is the third book in the Bartimaeus Sequence, which is a story about a young man named Nathaniel who is navigating the political and social challenges of growing up in an alternate universe where magic and demons are everywhere and whose closest friend just happens to be a 5,000-year-old, sarcastic, cunning djinni named Bartimaeus.
This short animated film and its teaser trailer were created as my final-year degree project at Weltec in 2010, with incredible assistance and support from the Bartimaeus fan community and the author of the books himself. It was adapted from the prologue chapter, which describes a mysterious and tense encounter between a sleeping Egyptian prince and a troupe of assassins sent to kill him - until the tables are unexpectedly turned against them.
The teaser trailer for the short film, released a few weeks in advance in October 2010.
I began by storyboarding the prologue to see whether this was a viable project to conclude my studies with. Once approved by the staff at Weltec, I moved on to research and development. Images above include references from my research into cinematographic styles for the film, including The Omen (2006) and The Mummy (1999). Various fan art collected from Deviant Art in 2010 were used as references and ideas for the look of Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus and the assassins were then designed and drawn in Adobe Illustrator in a range of poses with interchangeable heads, hands, limbs and hair.
The set for the film was built in Autodesk Maya.
The characters were animated in Adobe Flash and the final scenes were composited together in Adobe After Effects. The images above breakdown the layers: the initial scene was rendered in a lower quality without lighting but with markers for camera tracking, then the characters were drawn and animated to match the scene. The scene was then re-rendered in 3D at a higher quality without the tracking markers, and then compositing, colour and effects work was done.
The final short film was completed in October 2010 after seven months of continuous work, with some cuts to the ending of the story so that it could be completed and submitted in time for assessment. There were a lot of all-nighters in the run up to this deadline - it was a very exciting time in my life!
When the film was completed and posted online, fans of the books responded with very positive feedback across social media, on fan forums and on YouTube, where the original video currently has over 50,000 views. In 2018, in response to some deserved criticism of the Egyptian title character's pale skin colour, I re-edited and re-uploaded the video to darken his skin tone, which is the version currently available on my Vimeo channel.
Jonathan Stroud, the author of the book series, responded to my message on his website's fan forum praising the work I had done and posted a permanent link to the film on the book series' official website.
Part of the project required marketing, so I created a brand I named WhitePanda Media. For the mid-year work-in-progress presentation at Weltec, I created a 'press kit' that included glossy still images, an information flyer about the book series and a disc containing a work-in-progress version of the film.
"Press kit" still images of the film were printed and handed out to the presentation attendees.
I produced full-size posters for the short film, which were later printed on canvas.
These banners and teaser images were used on social media networks, DeviantArt and fan forums.
The last steps were sound design and colour grading. The music track samples work predominantly by Rebecca Kneubuhl and Gabriel Mann, as well as a mix of musical cues from the works of John Williams, Graeme Revell, Mark Eteson and Zirenz. These are stills from the finished film in its colour-corrected 2018 version.
"Wow, your animation is absolutely FANTASTIC, and I was completely stunned when I first saw it. It exactly captures the atmosphere, tension and eeriness of that PG prologue, which is one of my favourite bits of the book. I can't believe how good your depiction is, how crisply edited and beautifully cinematic. The music and s/f are perfect too! I've been lauding it to the skies as I've gone on my tour around the US, and I'll continue to plug it (including to my film agent, as we go hunting for someone to take up the movie options) - because it symbolises just how exciting a movie treatment of Bart could be. I'm awed by your achievement and dedication in making this, and I firmly intend to keep watch on future work... which I've no doubt will be a famous name before long.
I've been working on a new-look Bartimaeus website this year, which has taken up a lot of time. And I hope you don't mind, but I've put a prominent link through to your amazing animation (it's on the media page) so that even more people will see it and be thrilled. I thought your depiction of Bart as Ptolemy was spot on - exactly the right amount of beauty and demonic strangeness. I'll be sure to flag it up as and when I chat to any future film-maker. You never know..."
Jonathan StroudBest-selling author of "The Bartimaeus Sequence"
