For my fourth year project, I decided to do a narrative-based, 2D animated short film with my two teammates, Kelly O'Halloran and Emma O'Keeffe. Largely in charge of the visual development of the film, I created the character designs, completed the background designs and tried something new in environment animation.
Our film follows the adventure of a young girl as she enters an abandoned Victorian house, drawn in by the appearance of a cat. She explores the house, discovering that the paintings within are alive and moving. While this may seem like a joyful and light-hearted journey of the girl having harmless fun, little does she know that the longer she stays in the house, the more she is like an insect trapped within a spider's web. The house itself is alive, and has trapped countless children over the years, and the girl is just her newest victim. The film ends with the girl trapped within a painting propped up on the wall like a trophy along with the other children who ventured into the house.
Each Members Roles:
Ella Doolan - idea generation, character design, prop design, layout design, background design, environment animation (paintings and house itself) and creature animation (butterfly).
Emma O'Keeffe - fx design, fx animation, creature animation (cat and butterflies), compositing.
Kelly O'Halloran - storyboard, animatic, girl animation, creature animation (cat), compositing.
Scene 9's background was one of the first backgrounds I created for the short film. I was responsible for the initial sketch in the storyboard, the layout and completing the finished background, along with the various designs in the paintings. I used Procreate to create the elements in the background, then imported them into Toon boom Harmony and began scene prep in the the order of the background and foreground elements, as well as ensuring each item was the correct size and placement.
Production Still:
This was the first background I created for the short film at the end of the pre-production stage. I went from the initial thumbnail sketch scene on the top left, to clean line art and grey scale in the top right image. Once those were completed, and the layout was finalised in terms of perspective and composition, I moved onto colour blocking and adding texture to the background in order to add an abandoned and old atmosphere to the elements. The final step was the rendering, in which the lighting and shading was added to the background. This was all done on Procreate. I then prepped the scene for compositing, combining scenes that could be grouped in background, midground and foreground, before passing it onto my teammate Emma to complete the compositing.
Scene 11:
Scene 11's perspective was interesting to complete in terms of fitting in the furniture to match the perspective. It took a bit of rearranging from the storyboard. I started with a sketch, followed by line art. Colour blocking and texturing were then completed, and shading was the final step I took in completing the background still image. As the environment animator I was responsible for the painting animations seen throughout the film, with the exception of the water painting above the couch. Generally, I found it easier to complete the still background first, before tackling the painting animations.
Scene 13:
Scene 13 was one of the more detailed backgrounds I completed for the short film. As a still sequence in the film, with the girl standing on the couch, it allowed viewers to focus on the background surrounding the girl. The perspective was key in this design. In order for the girl to be visible from her position on the couch, I had to change the perspective slightly from the boards. Sketching out the background was the first step in this process, using perspective grids to ensure that the scale and position of objects matched the pervious backgrounds of this room. Line art and colour clocking were the next stages, followed by adding shading and texture to the piece.
Scene 14:
Scene 14's perspective was one point based, however, it was the amount of clutter and detail in this piece that took me a time to complete. I started with a sketch, then line art. This itself took a third of the time taken to complete the background. Colour blocking, texturing and shading followed these, and by the end I had a complete background that would be used twice in the short film.
Other Signficant Backgrounds I've Completed for the Short Film:
Concept Work I Completed for the Short Film:
