Product Code Database
Sintel (code-named Project Durian during production) is a 2010 animated fantasy film short film and the third Blender "open movie". It was produced by Ton Roosendaal, chairman of the Blender Foundation, written by Esther Wouda, directed by Colin Levy, at the time an artist at Pixar and art direction by David Revoy, who is known for Pepper&Carrot, a free and open source webcomic series. It was made at the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation. The plot follows the character, Sintel, who is tracking down her pet Scales, a dragon. Just like the other Blender "open movies," the film was made using Blender, a free and open source software application for animation, created and supported by the Blender Foundation.
The name comes from the Dutch language word , which can mean 'Ember', or 'ember'.
Sintel is ready to give up when the shaman tells her that they are in dragon lands, showing her the glyph on her attacker's spear as proof. She finds the tree pictured on the spear, and near it a cave with an adult dragon and his baby resembling Scales. The baby flees upon seeing Sintel, and the adult dragon attacks. After a brief battle the adult dragon pins Sintel to the ground, but freezes when he recognizes her scent. Sintel takes advantage of this momentary pause and stabs the dragon in the heart. As she is about to land the killing blow, she notices the scar on his wing is exactly the same as her old friend's. Sintel discovers in a moment of horror that she has just killed Scales.
Scales bleeds out rapidly, and Sintel stares in shock at her reflection in a pool of blood. It is revealed that she is significantly older than she has appeared throughout the film. She has much gray hair, worn and wrinkled skin, and several scars on her body. The long search for Scales had lasted many years, and she had never realized that Scales would have grown up. Her single-minded quest to get back her friend, and to take revenge on the large dragon who took Scales away, contributed to her mistaking Scales for the small dragon. The cave begins to collapse as Scales succumbs, and Sintel runs for the entrance.
After mourning over the friend she killed, Sintel leaves, heartbroken. Scales' baby, having nowhere else to go, follows her.
The film was funded by the Blender Foundation, donations from the Blender community, pre-sales of the film's DVD and commercial sponsorship. Both the final product and production data, including animation data, characters and textures are released under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
Improvements to Blender
As with the previous Blender Open Movie Projects, Blender developers worked extensively to improve the software in accordance with the needs of the movie team. Improvements were made in the user interface, the particle system, sculpting, shading, the render pipeline, constraints, and smoke simulation. These features were released to the public with Blender v. 2.50 alpha through 2.54 beta.
Copyright incident
On 5 April 2014, Sintel was temporarily blocked from viewing on the Blender Foundation's official YouTube channel after Sony Pictures issued a takedown notice to YouTube falsely claiming it owned the to the film.
Reviews
Dutch daily newspaper Het Parool featured a capture of the film on its front page, along with a short review describing it as "darker and less accessible than its child friendly predecessors," but also stating that in "image quality, detail and characters, the film is on par with Hollywood animation."
Game
A game based on Sintel was officially announced on blenderartists.org on 12 May 2010. Alpha version became available in July 2012.
External links
Categories: Durian.blender.org Official Website, Films Made Using Blender, 2010 Computer-animated Films, Creative Commons-licensed Films, Dutch Animated Short Films, Open Content Short Films, Articles Containing Video Clips, Animated Films About Dragons, 2010 Short Films, 2010 Films, 2010 English-language Films, Films Released On Youtube, English-language Short Films, 2010 Youtube Videos
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