Sintel
About Sintel
Sintel, a wanderer, fights off an ambush in the snow and takes her attacker's spear, then tells a shaman how she found a wounded baby dragon, named him Scales, and lost him to an adult dragon. The shaman sends her on. In a cave she fights a grown dragon, stabs it, and only then sees the scar that means the dragon is Scales, now adult after her years of searching. The cave falls in. She leaves, and Scales's own baby follows her.
Cast & crew
More about Sintel
Code-named Project Durian. Colin Levy directed, Esther Wouda wrote, Ton Roosendaal produced, and David Revoy was art director, at the Blender Institute. The name Sintel is Dutch for cinder or ember. Money came from the Blender Foundation, community donations, DVD pre-sales, and sponsors. The film and its production files were released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Work on it fed Blender versions 2.50 alpha through 2.54 beta, including the interface, particles, sculpting, shading, and smoke.
Themes
In film history
As an open movie, both the finished short and the character, animation, and texture files were published for reuse under Creative Commons.
Making
Levy was working at Pixar when he directed it. Revoy, later known for the webcomic Pepper & Carrot, designed the picture. The production was also a test bed for Blender's smoke and sculpt tools.
Reviews
The Dutch paper Het Parool called it darker and less accessible than the foundation's earlier, child-aimed shorts, and said that in image quality, detail, and characters it stood level with Hollywood animation.
Audiences
More than a million views were counted within weeks of the 30 September 2010 online release.
Technique
Made entirely in Blender. The production pushed the program's particle, sculpt, shading, constraint, and smoke tools, shipped in the 2.50–2.54 builds.
Music
Jan Morgenstern composed the score.
Preservation
The film and its production data remain available from the Blender Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Notes
- Halina Reijn and Thom Hoffman are the credited voices.
- It opened at the Netherlands Film Festival on 27 September 2010 and went online on 30 September.
- Running time is 14 minutes 48 seconds.
- It passed a million views within weeks of the online release.
- On 5 April 2014 Sony Pictures sent a takedown that briefly blocked the film on the Blender Foundation's YouTube channel. Sony did not own it.
- It is the third Blender open movie.
Scenes
- Sintel nurses the baby dragon and names him Scales.
- She stabs the adult dragon and recognizes the scar on its wing.
- Scales's baby follows her out after the cave collapses.
Also available
- Blender Foundation (official Creative Commons release)