Hello and welcome to my production blog: home of all of the highs, lows, and the entire process that comes with making an animated short film. For the next 12 months I will be working on roughly 2 minutes of animation – wild, isn’t it! And I hope to bring anyone who is willing to watch along for the ride 🙂
As I write this, it is currently April 11th and it has been raining all weekend – not great for hiking, but it has been great for catching up on work. Since I am currently in the preproduction class (IM 349), we have been working on concepts/mood boards/and scripts throughout the semester. After changing my idea around a few times and finally latching on to my passion project, I have decided to finally share my progress online.
Here is what we have so far:
My animation, “Creating: An Adventure,” is the story of creating. The art of creating always has its ups and downs, but it is only when you discover your confidence that you can control the outcome. This is a powerful message that has inspired me to be where I am today. My biggest hope for this film is to spark creativity, wonder, and inspiration. If I can manage to do this for even one viewer, it will all be worth it. Creating can be hard, but it is so incredibly important, and I hope more people start to realize this.
As far as animation style goes, I plan to create my film primarily in 2.5D vector art using Illustrator, After Effects, and some elements in Procreate. The style will have lots of flow and will have a heavy focus on transitions. The middle section of the film, however, will be made using stop-motion animation. I am very excited to work in stop motion and look forward to this experience (even though I know it will be tedious and challenging).
For the script, I have had the wonderful experience to be working with a senior from Richwoods High School, who is planning on majoring in screen writing in college, and has created beautiful articles for Giving Voice. She has been so much fun to work with and I am very happy with the outcome. Her writing always sparks my mind with creativity, so I knew this would be a great pairing from the beginning. The script is almost complete and I am excited to start the next phase.
Since I finally had time to catch up on work, I was able to start on storyboard thumbnails. Honestly, working in thumbnails is one of my favorite parts – the art does not have to look good (at all!) and you are just brainstorming all of the creative ways to tell the story. With some help from my roommate, who is a great listener while I vent all of my ideas out loud and who comes up with amazing ideas to make the project even better, I finished up the first round of thumbnails (around 30 of them) this afternoon.
The biggest problem I have run into so far is just trying to fit in the proper amount of time to work on my film. It has been a struggle to manage school work, internship work, other jobs, clubs, and a somewhat normal sleep schedule. I know that this will continue to be an issue I will fight, so I need to start now to become more adamant about setting aside time regularly for my film.
Next up is working on revising my storyboards. I have the first round done, but will need to adjust, gain others opinions, and start working on 6-ups. Then I will transition into more refined digital versions that I can put into an animatic.
I am very excited for my capstone animation and look forward to the process ahead!