It Starts with an Idea...
When given the daunting task of creating a grand piece to end four years of college, suddenly every idea for a personal project mysteriously falls out of your brain. I would write down ideas in my notes app for months but when it came time to start preproduction they all felt for a lack of a better word- lame.
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All that time sitting around just trying to get my brain to make something spark, I felt like I was wasting precious time. Then it hit me. That's exactly what my project should be about- wasting time. The feeling of sitting in bed and letting the day pass you by not because you want to but because you feel stuck.
“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;”
-William Shakespeare, Richard III
Let's Start Brainstorming
Every good project starts with a mood board and some music.
I wanted to convey the overwhelming feeling of non-action. I felt the best way to capture this was through overgrowth, like a statue or old car left to be reclaimed by nature.
The Music needed a similar feel, but also needed to feel a bit uncomfortable. I played around with tracks with synth, 8-bit style, lyrical, but the right fit was the track Untitled by Radiohead. It was unsettling and non lyrical so I could craft my narrative to my liking.
Winner!
Story is King
Story Beats
I didn't want to over complicate the story- I wanted it to be simple yet strong. The first story beats were about starting the day, but deciding to get back in bed. Slowly the world around the character rots, decays, or gets over grown- but this version wasn't as strong, the character needed to be more central.
From this a more character central idea emerged, making the choice to stay in bed more impactful to them and more daunting as they see the whole world has changed around them.
Animatic(s)
The first animatic was not the finished product of the story- there were many flaws and kinks to be worked out. I knew there should be a surreal-esque dream sequence to convey the uncomfortable passage of time but the contents at this point alluded me. I wanted that feeling of rot and death, the ugly parts of time passing to be shown but needed to fit them together in a sequence.
Several Animatics Later...
At this point the animatic was in it's final stage. By this point I also decided on the style- which would be a variety of styles. The aim was to create more of that unease and to blur the lines of reality as time unraveled.
Production
Thanks to pre-production, this part was a little easier, although very time consuming. Some shots that worked in animatic had lots of moving parts when it came to animating. From this point on it was about completing all parts and finessing the bits and bobs of it all.
First production pass
Challenges
Between render times to meshing styles, I encountered several issues while working through this project. Here's a few and how I solved them...
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How to rig without full on rigging? Simple! You rig... through parenting! This is how I accomplished the scene where the character rolls over in bed
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Uh oh! Cinema 4D isn't working but I need 3D clocks for the 3D scene- solution? Make them in Illustrator with 3D features and composite in after effects.
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I want a gritty hand drawn effect for the dream sequence but don't have time to cel animate it. To compromise, I made the parts in Illustrator with a pencil texture outline and used eyedesygns boil it plugin. After, I layered textures and recorded footage of the sequence on top to make it feel even more chaotic.
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The song is needed for pacing but it's not doing enough for the piece, what can I add? With the help of Ringling's resident sound designer Kelly Warner, we created sound effects and built a more surreal tone into the piece.
I listened to a 38 hour video essay about the Beverly Hillbilies while working on this project. It has since been removed from Youtube for copyright issues. Rest in peace.