Assisting a 2nd Year’s graduation film
As an animator/Artist who primarily works and focus’ on 2D mediums, I provided the chance to help Indulekha Velloor with their film for the simulated work experience, which was a 2D animated short film about daydreaming.
I was quite pleased with the pairing with Indulekha as the concept behind the film, daydreaming, was a theme I found to be quite interesting and aligned with some ideas I had in the past revolving around a similar/same concept. Furthermore, the direction behind the film, even through only an animatic, felt fitting to my interest in cinematography and story progressions.
I first met up with Indulekha to exchange greetings as well as discuss what kind of assisted they needed that I would be able to provide. As someone who has a lot of general knowledge about the animation production pipeline as well as experience in a variety of different roles, I felt like I was able to provide help in any part that my second year requested.
After getting a briefing about their graduation film; what its about, what the themes are, what scenes are going to be in the film, who the character is and what are they experiencing, I was also provided an animatic of what Indulekha has come up with for the initial idea and pacing for the film, alongside their pitch presentation so that I would be able to get as big of an insight into their project as possible, which I was really pleased about as I tend to be a person who works best with as much information about a project as possible. After watching the animatic, Indulekha requesting on some feedback about the animatic and my opinions on the film. I was able to provide some advice in terms of cinematography, such as a camera movement that they wanted to use but didn’t know the name of and/or how to incorporate it into a specific scene; the technique being the dolly zoom effect to provide an atmosphere of foreboding during the climax of the film.
Other than providing some feedback on the animatic, I was tasked to help in designing a background and scene concept for a very cinematic part in the film where the main character is underwater and needs an establishing shot viewing the scenery with the wildlife.
Once I finished drawing the concept frame, I was later tasked with making a short concept animation for the same scene to help give an idea of what can or will be moving in the scene, be it the wildlife and/or fauna underwater, and how it could be done.
I found this production to be both challenging yet interesting to work on due to all the different moving parts and how much it all intertwines with eachother, but thanks to Indulekha’s communication I was able to continue and prove help as much as possible while trying to preserve the initial concept and style of the original.