Introducing…Norman.

My name is John Michael Wilyat, and I’ve been working as a Senior Digital Artist at Neoscape for 3.5 years. In August of 2017 I had the opportunity to attend the D2 conference in Vienna which is a major meeting of the minds in the visualization industry. It was a great opportunity to expose myself to the most cutting edge technologies, techniques, and personalities within the industry from studios around the world.

It was not only my first time attending D2, but also my first time traveling to Europe. I wanted to document my trip through photos and video that I could share with friends and coworkers. While contemplating the best approach, I came up with the idea to make a short film around the experience. The result was a short film about Norman, a gnome that travels to Vienna for the first time in search of his family. Telling the story through Norman’s eyes was a great way to remove myself from the narrative and freely express very nuanced and intimate details I might have concealed otherwise. Plus, I just love staying behind the camera.

I planned the shoot a few days before my flight and filmed everything on my 5DMkIII with a mono-pod in about 8 hours as I was exploring Vienna. I wrote the script on the flight back to NYC and had my friend Ryan Chavez edit the project together in Adobe Premiere. From script to screen, the project came to life in about a week.