Alisa’s Blog

Short Film

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Final Designs

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Background Layouts

(Please click on the thumbnail to view!)

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Storyboard Animatic

Click here to access SHELLBOUND SCRIPT

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Animation Test

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Concept Sketches

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Conclusion

Shellbound is for sure my greatest achievement in my artistic journey. It is the most I have ever drawn, and the most time I have dedicated to a project. It has provided me with space to heal from very personal stories and created a place for me to channel those feelings into. Shellbound has also challenged me to try new things despite the feelings of uncertainty that come with it. From what was once just an imaginary flow of events, became a fully realised short film. I am really pleased with that.

During the last two weeks of the project, I prioritised work over sleep and health. This is the one thing that I wish I could have avoided had I organised and managed my time better at the start of production. I made a decision to take two weeks off after Christmas to fully recover from writing my dissertation as I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to do well. In late February I was unable to work or attend class for one week due to an ocular health concern – thankfully it was a relatively minor thing and caused me no bother since, but it made me put more importance on my health now and in the future. Despite everything, I feel that I have grown more resilient and much better at managing my own stress. I have learned how I work, not just as an animator but as a human being. In conclusion, I could not have finished a project of this scale without some recovery days to look after my physical and mental health.

As I chose to do most of my animation fixes as I went along, the post-production phase is a lot more brief than I had initially planned.

I started post-production after Easter when I created a Premiere project that I could start pre-composing Shellbound in. Doing this was suggested by Rachel and one of my friends. They both told me that it would be very rewarding to see the work come together. I feel that this is very true at the end of the production, however when I was still only halfway through it felt slightly disappointing. I had to get over those feelings quick! Once I was past it, it was very rewarding.

Compositing

I decided to do all of my compositing work in Adobe Premiere Pro as that was the best workflow for me for the following reasons.

• Premiere can create image sequences in just two clicks as you import images, which saves a lot of time – previously I have been using After Effects for this, which I now find to be a hassle especially if there is no need for additional post-production work
• I would always eventually bring my files to Premiere Pro anyway so it made sense to skip After Effects

Sound

Some of the sound effects in Shellbound are highly specific, like the wooden cart movement for example. DaVinci Resolve Fairlight Sound Library gives access to thousands of royalty-free sound effects, and I was able to find every sound I needed for the film. I compiled a folder with all the sounds I would need for the edit during the pre-production stage.

When looking for music for Shellbound, I first tried licensing companies such as Jamendo. From a list of potentially fitting songs, I chose Don’t Close Your Eyes (Instrumental) by Josh Woodward. When playing it alongside the film, I felt that it suited the tone, setting and overall pacing of the film. I particularly like the fact that it is recorded with live instruments.

https://www.joshwoodward.com/song/DontCloseYourEyes

Jamendo offers a monthly subscription service, which gives access to their entire library for about £30. As I was only going to use one song, I found this to be quite expensive.
I was surprised to discover that Josh Woodward has no other royalty agreements tied to his music, other than to credit him when using his songs. It was not my original plan to use his song for free, but I am thankful that I can save some money and most importantly have found such a beautiful song that complements my film.

Now I should address the elephant in the room, my voice acting! That’s all I have to say about that.

Jokes aside, I did plan on finding voice actors for Cai and Ffion as this was within the realm of possibility, it just did not work out due to unforeseen circumstances and I had already received feedback on the voice acting being fine for now (I guess?).

Visuals

While working on materials for the Creative Futures module, I have looked for a suitable typeface for Shellbound’s graphics. I have included examples below.

As far as the film goes, I just needed a nice font for the title card and the end credits. After trying different ones out, I settled with Tentag Nanti by Gartype Studio. I created the title card sequence in After Effects by adding a fade in and a very simple drop shadow to the graphic. I intentionally wanted to keep it very simple, like in my animatic.

I regret not making more time to create nicer credits for my short, but this is something that I can change after the submission deadline.

Final Cut

I brought all of my finished scenes into Premiere for the final edit and mix. I made sure to export some of my scenes out of ToonBoom with some extra frames at the end to allow for full transitions between scenes. I saved a lot of time by doing most of the sound edit in pre-production, however there are still parts that I am not completely happy with. The mix is not perfect but I feel that I found a lovely selection of sound effects to go along with my film. I am also really happy with how well the instrumental music matches the pacing and theme of the film.

Below is the version of Shellbound which was submitted on the 12th of May, 2024. See my concluding thoughts in my portfolio page.

Planning

Throughout the entire production thus far I have been using Trello for managing different tasks and keeping note of feedback etc.

I have also created a shot list + animation tracker combo that works really well for me!

Background Layouts

For Shellbound, I placed a lower priority to creating layouts vs. character animation. The characters don’t interact with their environment much, but I wanted both to still feel alive. I added some animated foreground elements and small movement to the backgrounds to make them feel more organic. I was hoping to push this further a lot more, but unfortunately the scope of the project, paired with it being a solo production, was not suited for any more complexities this time. Below I have included a handful of my finished background layouts, others will be available through my portfolio post.

Upon some reflection and feedback from Sarah, I decided to cut off the first opening shot set at night time as it felt out of place and didn’t set the tone right for Shellbound. Despite this, I found it fun to develop and took it as a small moment to think about how to apply colour theory into my work. Below you can see some of my progress when creating this layout.

Animation Progress and References

Before returning back to uni in January, I kicked off animation production with a couple of rough animations. One of the scenes, 4B, can be seen below. This was the first shot I animated.

I was really keen on keeping the rough animation on top of the line and colour layer as I stylistically liked this look. Over time I simplified this look to avoid the animation from looking too distracting or muddy.

Throughout production I consulted Aodhan weekly on my animation progress. I struggled to keep my animation from looking superficial and too bouncy at times, and I found that looking at reference or acting the scene out usually helped with this too.

As an animator, I tend to lean towards animating with feeling. I find the ability to remember certain patterns in animated media useful when looking for references. Most of the time, this process is very subconscious and I think it’s just the way my brain works. Despite having a bunch of animated works to look at for reference, it was often needed to film some of the references myself, one of which can be seen below.

I consistently used a notebook to plan out my shots before blocking them out.

I kept referring to Ponyo for animation reference. It especially helps to look at the way the water is animated in it. For shot 7B, I looked at this scene from Ponyo as reference.

ToonBoom Workflow

I set up my scenes by importing the voice over lines where needed, along with the background layout and storyboard panels into the project.

As mentioned in the pre-production phase, I found the tips that Jesse J. Jones mentioned during his live ToonBoom workshop very helpful! He recommends using a second camera panel at the corner of the workspace to see what’s going on in the scene at all times. I found this to be really helpful throughout animation production as it helps to see if things are working in the big picture as opposed to just being too focused on details. I imagine it also saves some time from constantly zooming in and out!

Since working professionally with CelAction2D for Paper Owl, I got used to the Xsheet and I was glad to be able to have this as well as the timeline.

I found that the more I animated, the easier it was for me to be less precious about my drawings. At the beginning of production my drawings were stiff and almost illustrative instead of flowy and confident. While there is nothing inherently wrong with putting effort into every drawing, it is not exactly ideal when you need to create hundreds of them. I believe that this is something that I eventually loosened up about as I became more confident in my drawing ability.

I wanted to keep the lining of the animation as minimal as possible for both stylistic and time saving reasons. I found that creating rough animation, then lining it with the pen and lining it again with the brush created the best results. It became very natural to me and I found this process to work for me!

When it comes to colouring, I simply coloured directly on the line art layer as the lines were already there. I am sure this is not recommended as it can make fixes difficult, however it is what worked for me in terms of speed. To close the gaps in the line art ready for colouring, I used the pen tool set to 0 while making sure the line points were visible. This added extra work to the workload, but I wanted the line art to be loose and this was one way I could still colour within the lines.

I find the fact that ToonBoom is vector-based very good for creating smooth animation. One way I utilised this is by copying and transforming elements such as the hair or mouth shapes for more smooth breakdowns.

I found onion skins to only really be useful when blocking out large movements or when squashing and stretching. Other times I tried to refrain from using them too much as I find just switching between frames a little more natural. Like with most visual forms of art, just eyeing it can sometimes do the job faster as it is most of the time pretty accurate.

I exported my ToonBoom scenes as png image sequences.

Shplooba Transformation Sequence: Rough to Polish

This was the shot that I felt the most nervous about when approaching production. I had tried to references to fully understand how I would go about it, but I struggled to find any animated sequences that show a transformation happening in this way. The closest I could find was this moment from Ponyo. I had also looked at this sequence from Pooh’s Heffalump Movie to imagine how the Shplooba would ‘float’ underwater.

One of my major inspirations for this sequence and for Shplooba itself is this episode of Ladybird and Bee. The way the tadpole is animated is similar to what I was going for with Shplooba.

I had a very clear visual idea of how I wanted to plan the transformation out. I kind of just sat down and tried my best to come up with it on the go. I think for a scene like this it works really well to just go with the flow.

As I enter the pre-production phase, I have decided on my characters, setting, general art style and a rough synopsis of the story. At this point I have decided that the title of the film will be Shellbound.

Alongside other students working on 2D or 2D hybrid animated projects, I am being tutored by Aodhan throughout this year. Each Tuesday class is an opportunity to show up with progress and receive and provide feedback where needed. On occasions where I have been unable to attend in person, it has been possible to share work and receive feedback from Aodhan through Discord. I find the delivery of these tutorials similar to a professional setting and I feel a general improvement in my social confidence, as far as presenting my art with confidence goes. It is all I got! Not all I am.

Story and Script Development

After discussing the synopsis of my film during the pitch presentation, I received some feedback that the driving force behind the narrative was unclear. This feedback affected how I approached the story.

With Shellbound I was hoping to explore the themes of sibling estrangement and how a simple act of kindness can change a relationship. The younger brother Cai wants nothing more than his older sister Ffion to spend time with him, like she once did but she has become preoccupied with tasks that she feels are more age-appropriate. The main storytelling device is the shell and its transformation into a magical creature called Shplooba. I want the moment of this transformation to also resonate as a major moment in terms of the relationship between the siblings. A way I approached this was to establish the Shplooba as a creature that both siblings used to believe in but now only one of them still believes. I believe this heightens the impact of when they both see the Shplooba for the first time together. I wanted to elevate this feeling further by having Ffion be the one that brings the shell to Cai showing that she still cares about how much these things mean to him.

Following my first group tutorial, I sent a first draft of my script to Aodhan. His feedback was to create more of a sense of conflict between the two siblings, so that the ending has more of an impact. I addressed this feedback by adjusting the dialogue to make the confrontation in the first act feel more impactful. When developing the script, I looked at Song of The Sea as a reference as it features a similarly strained childhood sibling relationship.

At this point after implementing the feedback, the script is final.

SHELLBOUND SCRIPT

Storyboards and Animatic

When I started to think about possible shots, I referred back to footage I had taken from Tremone Bay. Below are some shot concepts I came up with. I annotated any moving elements with arrows. I made the mistake of having darker values in the background vs. the foreground, which makes some of the shots read unclear.

After I had finalised the script, I moved onto storyboarding. An easy way I learned how to set up storyboards in Photoshop was by using layer comps. This video by Rajen Ramkallawan was a really helpful resource for me: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5mpvuTp_57Q

As I worked on the storyboards, I thought about how I should best use visual storytelling to convey the narrative. At times I found this to be difficult and did not always know how to approach a shot. I made sure to consult my tutors and peers whenever able, and found their fresh outlook to be extremely helpful. It was very important for me to tell the story in the most visually effective way so I always made sure to take feedback on board and make necessary alterations to my boards.

With it being a solo project, I understood that there would be half as much time to get things done so I focused on what would save me time in production. This meant spending more time adding detail to my storyboards and deciding on background layouts ahead of time. Even though it required some extra effort to consider all of these things, I am glad that I did so. Once I was done with the boards, I was also happy to see the story laid out visually.

With this in mind, I did not feel the need to create an animatic with fully animated elements as this would take a lot of time I could be spending on working on finalising my designs. I put together an animatic in Premiere using my boards, temporary voice over that I had recorded, as well as some possible sounds and music I found. The most important task is to figure out the timing of each shot to determine the expected length of the animation.

As previously mentioned, I did my placement with a local studio Paper Owl Films, animating on a 2D animated TV production. I experienced the professional pipeline of animation production first-hand, which is extremely valuable to have in Final Year. Part of this pipeline was always having a brilliant animatic to refer to. Knowing what to expect from an animatic as an animator, I made sure to create an animatic that would be useful to me in production.

Below is my third pass of the animatic. Overall, I feel that my choice in music made me hold the shots for too long, otherwise I am happy with the alterations I made upon receiving feedback from Aodhan.

Character and Prop Designs

As seen below, I used a sketchbook for convenience when exploring different character design elements. In the same sketchbook, I also wanted to draw as many iterations as I could and be left with a handful of nice ones that could help inform my final designs.

Since the beginning, I wanted Cai to appear kind-hearted and lovable. My main inspiration for Cai is Tove Jansson’s Moomin, who has both of these traits. Cai is a young boy with a love of shells and the beach. He has sea green hair to represent the sea and a knitted jumper that resembles a scallop shell. His skin tone is tan and freckled. In some of my development work he appeared slightly older, so I tried to simplify his forms and make him just 3 heads tall, while still honouring his original design.

Ffion is Cai’s sister, she is much more withdrawn than Cai. My main inspiration for her design was Sheeta from Castle in The Sky. Ffion’s design is also inspired by the foxglove flower, with dark rose coloured hair with hair buns that resemble the flower’s buds. Ffion’s name is also Welsh for foxglove, which was fitting. I wanted to portray her personality through her expression. She is 3 1/2 heads tall.

Ffion’s design went through a few iterations to get it right, and these design sheets are not completely final, however the overall intention of the design stayed the same. I experimented with different styles to achieve the level of appeal I was going for with this story.

During the character designing process I was inspired by the work of Stephen Silver. His designs use straightforward, but fun shape language to simplify forms for the purpose of animation. I also learned about and implemented the CSI method, which primarily uses curved or straight lines for design.

Shplooba is a magical underwater creature bound to a shell. Shplooba resembles a puppy, a tadpole and a seal with jellyfish like colouring. Shploobas are real!

Shplooba’s design was the least developed thus far and I had to just trust the vision I had in my mind when creating it. Having Cai and Ffion’s designs finished, it was relatively easy to match the same art style to a creature. I did this by repeating some of the round shape language and lines. I chose a purpley colour palette to suggest the Shplooba’s magical nature.

It is extremely important to me for the characters to have appeal as I personally believe it to be the most crucial part of design. I have a personal style that is heavily inspired by my appreciation for Bukowski Design stuffed animals. I find myself very particular about the eye and nose placements and I think it is because it is what sets two of the same stuffed animals apart. The same applies to 2D design too.

A very helpful resource for understanding the importance of lines in design is this talk from Alfredo Cassano, the lead animator of Jesper from Klaus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgyyl8DZw1U

When designing Cai and Ffion’s house, I was inspired by the house seen in My Neighbour Totoro. I wanted the house to appear to have been renovated to be bigger, instead of just being a small cottage. It is maybe slightly too big, but I am sure they are living well haha. I struggled the most with perspective in this, but since the house would only be seen from two perspectives I was not overly worried about that.

Tests and Experimentation

Before I could move into production, it was necessary to do some tests. With character designs finished, I started to consider the colour palettes of the backgrounds. I used both Coolors and Adobe libraries to keep my colours accessible throughout the project.

To help me come up with a suitable colour palette for the film, I sketched out some background thumbnails over the storyboards to make some tests with. I generally knew the look I was going for, which was something between Moomin and Bluey. To achieve ta nostalgic feel, I applied a warm toned filter over the image and used the picker tool to collect the colours into a library. The filter is what makes the sky appear slightly green, which I personally really like.

After having some thumbnails done, I wanted to see if the characters still stood out enough against the backgrounds. I feel that the colours work really well together for the most part, and I am glad that these tests were successful.

Having character designs finalised, I really wanted to practise using ToonBoom Harmony a bit more before jumping straight into production as this was the software I was going to be animating with for this project. Last summer, I had created a small test animation with it after watching a livestream class by Jesse J. Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl1LcET86DY&list=PLYRPVtOhCRnlJvgadv6GMHhqZeNtSb6_C&index=3. Watching this whole stream before even opening the software was very helpful as I knew I would be overwhelmed without any learning materials in the summer. It also taught me several helpful things about the software and animation in general which I am really thankful for (I will be touching upon those further in production). In my first rough animation test I explored the Shplooba’s movement in water.

Since I had not touched ToonBoom since the summer, I wanted to go ahead and ease into it by practising animating Cai’s walk cycle. This allowed me to learn the new software while also helping me land on a style of animation for the project. In my first attempt I struggled to keep forms and shapes consistent and had difficulty applying any principles. I think that this attempt shows how I rushed the process and did not put enough thought into the purpose of any of the drawings. It can seem a bit harsh, but I believe that it is equivalent to faking before you make it. This version of Cai is going through it and he does not look well. I am so, so sorry Cai.

See my animation reference by Jeff Liu below. Aodhan pointed out that my reference has very subtle arcs and I believe that this made my first attempt look like it was missing weight too.

I also received some feedback from peers who were so kind to give me some tips on how I can improve my animation. One of my friends suggested I draw too much and advised me to try copying some of the elements to keep them consistent. I was able to see my mistakes and areas that needed improvement, so I decided to create a second pass with these fixes in mind.

After applying the feedback I got from my tutor and peers, I feel like the movement looks more natural. Aodhan was happy with the improvement, however advised me to pay attention to how the knees are bending. Overall, I am glad I took the time to practise before the animation phase kicks off. I still plan on fixing this walk cycle up before adding it to my portfolio.

Despite it not being a group project, I always wish to listen to feedback from my peers as I value people’s varying perspectives. This helps inform my creative choices as this is something that I find to be important within and without art.

At times I feel very down about my work, which is maybe the biggest thing hindering my ability to create sometimes. I feel that I am aware of it though, I see it and I know it – but I also see that my work has many imperfections. I try to find comfort in knowing that the imperfections are sometimes what I myself enjoy the most when viewing others’ art. But when it comes to the fundamentals and my overall technical ability, unfortunately that is just a part of the process and I have to trust that I will improve as long as I keep going.

The filmmaker David Lynch once famously said:

“Every single thing in the world that was made by anyone started with an idea. So to catch one that is powerful enough to fall in love with, it is one of the most beautiful experiences. It’s like being jolted with electricity and knowledge at the same time”

It is hard to track exactly where the idea for Shellbound originated, but there are plenty of influences which I can identify. Some of these are real life locations and experiences, and others are creative works which I enjoy.

Early Visual Influences, Sketches and Concepts

“How To Find A Sea Unicorn” created by @passionpeachy (see Tumblr link below) depicts a tiny unicorn curled up inside a clam in the place of a pearl. I found the concept of discovering something so magical to be highly inspiring and it led me to creating my first development work for Shellbound.

The development sketches seen below were created during the last few weeks of Second Year. My early concept involved a shell that washed to land and transformed into a land animal.

I am also a huge fan of Briony May Smith’s work and I own many of her children’s books. Her 2020 book titled Margaret’s Unicorn is one of my very early influences for Shellbound. I am particularly fond of the relationship between the characters and how it is depicted in the illustrations. From the beginning I wanted my story to feature characters and a plot that children could relate to.

Below are some very early idea explorations around the concept of a shell transforming into a creature.

Over the summer and during my placement at Paper Owl, I let these ideas marinate. Below is a series of moodboards created using second-hand references found via Pinterest, most of which I have identified below. The rest I am unfortunately unable to provide credit for at this time. I have also included a handful of concept art, some of which was created further into development around the start of Final Year.

(Emil i Lönneberga, Project Ithyä, Late Afternoon, Je suis un Caillou, Song of The Sea, Malá mořská víla, Krtek a raketa, Moomin, Der kleine Eisbär, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind)

Early Story Concept, Characters and Setting

At this early stage, I knew that I wanted the main characters to be children, specifically, two siblings, a boy and a girl. I also knew that I wanted them to encounter a magical shell creature or even a group of different magical shell creatures. It was important to me that there would be an emotional aspect to the story and I wanted the creatures to be part of this in some way but I did not know how I would implement this.

After I had decided that I definitely wanted two sibling characters to feature in the film, I decided to develop their designs. While doing this, I wanted to take the opportunity to create a character turnaround for the first time. Below is an early design of the boy character named Cai.

By this point, I had decided that I really liked the idea of a shell transforming into a creature and I felt that this concept could be realised in a very striking way through the medium of animation. Since I knew I wanted this transformation to be a major moment in the story, I decided to focus on developing just one creature design. When developing the shell creature’s design, I came to the conclusion that I did not just want it to be a magical version of a real animal, but instead an original creature unique to this film. I researched the shapes of different kinds of shells and this informed the design.

After spending some time exploring the early story and character concepts, I started thinking more about the location where the film would be set. Since I knew I wanted the sea and shells to feature heavily, it was natural to choose a beach as the setting. My first-hand reference material is recorded at Tremone Bay, a small beach in Co. Donegal. I photographed it a lot to help me come up with a setting for my story. I kept in mind composition rules such as the rule of thirds when framing the footage as I knew it would help me at a later stage when designing shots for the film. Below I have included some video footage of the bay.

I spent some more time developing all of these concepts in my sketchbook until it was time to transition into the pre-production phase.