This is a current work in progress project and I've decided to share it as a look into my overall design process and breakdown of a project. I am working on this piece as part of a group of four from my college and we started this off with a talk from the company Northstar; from Limerick, Ireland. Where they told us their company mission to aid the families' of those affected by substance misuse. From there we asked loads of questions in regards to the does and don'ts we should consider. Taking all this down, we then started to brainstorm and get to work.
My Initial Breakdown and Structure I wanted to take.
Through discussions as a team and with my lecturers we broke everything down to make a short about 3 characters; an old man, a mother and a young man. To show the various types of people they work with from all different backgrounds and of any age. We focused on the companies various activities and actions they take for each individual as well. Highlighting; one to one discussions, group info days and the classes they teach such as English creative writing. From here I got to work drawing up a first draft of the storyboard.
Now while I felt these drawings illustrated the story we had planned out, they were still too unclear and also lacked context for most characters. So we decided to go back and cut things down. Showing as few locations and characters as possible, to maintain a clear storyline of three characters who are struggling, finding relief through the help of the Northstar Project. We also started to move forward with honing in on an overall style and approach.
We each then went and designed our own versions of the three main characters to each provide our own style and input and ultimately choose something we all liked most. In the end we went with my design.
From here we touched up the final storyboard and I brought it all over to Storyboard Pro where I made into our decided animatic. To present to the Northstar Project group, before moving forward and finishing our animation.
From here we then dove head first into making backgrounds as well as character turnarounds so as to then start animating as soon as possible. We only had about 5 weeks to produce this animation, and even though we were a team of four, it still pushed us for time. I drew the young man character with the hat. Giving him a full 3D rotation as he's shown from multiple angles throughout the animation.
I then swiftly moved onto designing the hallway background for this young man character. I wanted this location to try and tell the story of an otherwise high functioning family. That from the outside seems to be the ideal perspective, living above middle class and proudly displaying their family photos, but with subtle details and obscurities to hint at certain troubles brewing.
Final Result
Scene Fully Animated
Next I moved onto the final big scene in the church. A scene that I planned out from start to finish, that is meant to show all the characters happily coming together. Having gone through the service and shown to be all the better for it. I took inspiration from classic Disney backgrounds from Frozen, Beauty and The Beast, Tangled as well as Disenchantment with that large scale, victorian aesthetic.
From here my work was done and it was just time to compile all our teams efforts and produce the final animation.
