How The Series Was Produced
The series was produced by Modern Cartoons in their works in Oxnard, California, USA. Unlike Thomas the Tank Engine, this series used a mixture of techniques:
- The backgrounds were miniature sets (usually built on 2 4'x8' sheets of plywood)
- Brenda Blue was a live action actress shot in front of a greenscreen
- The planes were computer models created in Maya and a proprietary software.
- The movement of the planes was recorded by playing out the scene with wood models that had magnetic position sensors. The planes had a switch to aid landing and taxiing, due to some minor fluctuations in the magnetic positioning data.
- The planes' faces and lip synching were done by "face tracking". This is a technique where reflective spots are put on a voice actor's face. The voice track is being digitally recorded along with the spot data. Then using a form of parametric animation the face is rendered.
- Head movement and other effects were done by joysticks.
The complex mathematical and CGI issues were solved by Frank Ford Little, PhD.
A number of proprietary software systems were used:
- The data/audio recording and smoothing was done on a Windows machine.
- The daily cuts were done on "Compaq Alpha" computers running a 64-bit version of Windows NT 4.0.
Read more about this topic: Jay Jay The Jet Plane
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