TEAM CREATURE FEATURE
BEGINNING STAGES
STORY IDEA
At first we considered all coming up with our own ideas and we would vote for which one we liked the best and expand on it as a team from then. However, we decided that we wanted a more balanced input on the story idea from all team members to have come up with it equally. Therefore, we chose to play a game where we created several randomised stories filled with different ideas, then we chose our favourite ones and created a really unique animation idea.
CONCEPT ART AND DESIGN
We had a multitude of concepts that we originally wanted to include which can be seen in our early concept art and even early storyboards. Originally the boat was meant to fly in and land on the water and the worldbuilding was way more expansive. We had ideas such as flying fish, and massive skeletal giants walking in the background to cement that this is an otherworldly location. We even had several story variations and considered different versions of the fisherman as other creatures and other creatures as the main antagonist. A different variation of the story included the fly fisherman’s grandkids existing in the story, but due to time we had to cut many of these ideas.
We decided that having the creature be something like a seagull would be too unredeemable and would look quite cursed so we settled on something that could be both intimidating and cute. Ultimately we wanted the fly fisherman to let go of his anger and forgive the creature as nobody was truly in the wrong. The angry creature was hurt and hunted by other fishermen, possibly losing his leg to a trap, and the fisherman was angry at the creature for his missing arm.
STORYBOARD AND ANIMATIC
We cut out major portions of what we originally wanted to include in order to save time, and we originally also struggled how to explain to the audience what was going on as the fisherman and creature both don’t speak, they only make sounds. This is why we used the radio on the boat in the animation to explain the reason for the fisherman hunting the creature. We had to refine shots in the animatic many times before it was approved but we managed to fit the entire story within the 30 seconds.
FINAL DESIGNS
We decided on simple colour schemes for both the fisherman and the creature so that the colouring process would not be too complicated. Additionally, we did a character breakdown and decided on specific details for each character. We would’ve also made a character turn sheet but unfortunately we had to start animating and didn’t have enough time for it. We also gave the creature scars and added a net (in the animation) to emphasise that the creature had previously been hunted by other fishermen.
PRODUCTION
THE BOAT
As we wanted our animation to be a mix of 2D and 3D we decided that the boat and some foreground mushrooms in some shots will be 3D. So Sonya made this awesome boat using cardboard and used popsicle sticks in order to make the planks on the deck.
BACKGROUND
ANIMATION
After a third member joined the 2D animation team we reassigned the duties of the shots per person and continued our work.
Some WIP images below
My job was to use the photos of the boat, align them as close as possible (accounting for the difference in the shape and size of the boat) to the animatic, and then animate and compile the scene. As I noticed that some images were at the wrong angle or blurry I personally went through each scene to align all the boat photos we had to the corresponding shots and see which ones had to be retaken. Once I aligned the boat I exported the files of shots that weren’t my responsibility to the other members of my team to ensure that they could start working.
Because we didn’t want to add shadows I also experimented with colour and pattern overlays on krita’s layer style section. The colour overlay was a greyish turquoise at 30-40% opacity to help the characters fit more into the scene. Whereas the pattern overlay created a nice texture that gave the animation and cool mixed media look and made the transition from 3D boat to 2D animated character less jarring. I experimented with several patterns and consulted the team until we decided on a specific one to use across almost every shot.
EDITING
I edited the animation together in CapCut with another member of the team. Although we originally wanted to use PremierePro, some of the team used matroska files which Premiere deemed incompatible, therefore we had no choice but to edit in CapCut due to lack of time.
Below is photos of Sonya getting the sound effect for the splash created by the creature jumping out of the water.