For ease of navigating, please use the links below to find the posts in chronological order.

SEMESTER 1

Week 1 & 2
Week 3 & 4

Week 5, 6 & 7

Week 8, 9 & 10

Week 11 & 12

WINTER BREAK

Week 13 & 14

Week 15 & 16

Week 17 & 18

SEMESTER 2

Week 1

Week 2 & 3

Week 4, 5 & 6

Week 7, 8, 9 & 10

Week 11, 12, 13, 14 & 15

SUBMISSION

PORTFOLIO

REFLECTION

This project has been such a challenge, and yet very rewarding. While it wasn’t fully finished for submission, I’m really proud of where we got to. My main success is in how it is fully animated, lined and coloured. There’s a lot in hindsight that I wish we’d been able to do, some thumbnails before reworking have more personality and certain ideas would’ve been fun to explore. There’s some animations I wish I could go back and fix, some transitionary shots like when Meredith is walking into the apartment at the end. The cut to the next shot feels a bit abrupt. My inexperience with comp means some scenes didn’t turn out quite how I wanted too.

I’m also proud of how me and Will communicated throughout this project. I think we learnt key skills in conflict resolution and balancing stress as a team. The fact we moved so efficiently through production and implemented feedback quickly is an accomplishment, I think. We were idealistic at the start of the project, but I think scheduling and constantly reviewing where we were in production helped us to manage our time more effectively. We made some concessions to get the film ready for submission, but the amount of work we pulled off despite that and the technical difficulties makes me happy. We exceeded where we were expected to be by this point, and keeping to a tighter schedule definitely kept the production moving. Being able to critically evaluate the project while working on it benefitted the film, even when sacrifices had to be made to complete it.

Overall, I think my biggest regrets are not spending more time figuring out character turnarounds and drawing consistently. While I think it was necessary to keep the momentum going before Christmas break, it means my sketches are quite disorganised. I’m most impressed with how quickly I saw improvement in my skills as an animator. Looking back on my work from a year or two ago, I’ve grown so much. The rapid nature of final year pushed me to improve. Some animations are more flawed than others, there’s a few shots with really obvious volume control issues. Some shots could’ve been more complex too, but in all, I feel very accomplished. We have a plan moving forward towards the end of year show to complete the film entirely, and I think it’s feasible with how much we’ve achieved so far. This year was full of challenges but our persistence to hand in a film of (hopefully) good quality powered us through.

Week 11:

Colour progress as we near the end of clean up. I think we’re in a good place.

I’m currently sound editing the short for the presentation on Tuesday. Again, for ease of reading, I won’t clutter the page with loose shots and will demonstrate our progress in the video below.

Week 12:

The final presentation went really well! Sarah, Aodhan and Rachel all think the story is much clearer and easier to understand. I also showed this edit to my family, who I haven’t explained the plot of the film to, and they all could follow what was going on.

Our main worry was time, there were small timing issues but our lecturers seemed happy with our work. They asked us about timelines and by this point it’s pretty clear comp won’t be done but we were encouraged to focus on getting line art done. With the pace we’ve been working at, which is about 10-15% every week, I’m sure we’ll be able to finish line art, but maybe not colour.

This shot still needs tangents erased.

I also finished my clean up for Scene 5. Will has taken my shots for scene 6 as he finished clean up. Scene 6 is the longest scene at 50 shots. I have a few shots already cleaned up, and I’m going to take the shot of Meredith and Valerie sitting on the bed.

Week 13:

Clean up is done! I cleaned up all of scene 2, scene 4, all of my shots in scene 5 and three in scene 6.

I was also comping scene 3 first as it had a lot of question about how I’d comp it. The firelight was a bit of a mystery to me.

Will has primarily undertaken colouring this short. I only coloured a handful of shots. He’s been incredibly quick and it looks like we might get colour done before submission, which is ahead of where the lecturers told us to aim for!

I also finished comp for sc02

Week 14:

This is the progress of comp after scene 1, 2 and 3 were all comped.

And this is where I’d say I’m making progress on comp, however that is no longer the case.

I was actually further ahead than this screenshot, I was 50% of the way through comp when Sc06 corrupted. I was using a computer on campus that had an issue writing the save. I know this because all of the autosaves are also corrupted, which is supposed to be the solution to After Effects corrupting. I tried importing into a new project, importing into Premiere Pro, doing the same for all of the autosaves and it’s not salvageable. We were looking towards getting likely 60% – 70% done before submission at least. Sc06 had about half the comp done.

I was working on scene 6 because it’s the longest scene and had the most unique comp. Scene 4 and 5 would look similar to 2, so I wanted to focus on comping 6.

Scene 5 also corrupted. Will had finished colouring it while I was working on scene 6, so I had replaced all roughs with finished animation. I have to replace all of scene 6 and scene 5’s animation again, and restart comp on 6. I had a back up file of the layout but it was quite old. I always have the autosave feature turned on as it’s a known issue with After Effects and it’s the best way to deal with it. I now have two copies of every file just to be safe.

Week 15:

We are most definitely finishing colour for submission. I took to cleaning up and colouring the final shot of Meredith.

(Before fixing the layering)

This week was mainly spent catching up on comp and sound editing.

I was back down to 29%.

I started from the start of scene 6 and then jumped to the ending as I think it isn’t as impactful otherwise. I had intended to finish scene 6 but editing got in the way. However, I did get scene 4 done.

With what was left of scene 06, I knew I wouldn’t finish it. To maximise the amount of work I could get done for submission, I knew scene 4 would take me a couple of hours at most. I decided to set scene 6 down to completely finish scene 4, and then try and work on scene 6 comp alongside editing.

As of Sunday, this is where comp stands. I’m disappointed because, in hindsight, I believe if we didn’t run into this issue, we could’ve maybe finished the film entirely. I was getting about 20% done every day until the corruption happened.

The only other thing about the film that isn’t done are the designed credits. I have pretty basic rolling credits in for now, but before the final showcase our goals are:

• re-implement shadows. This is achievable as our shadows are quite minimal.
• Complete comp
• Design themed credits.

(All comp and editing done by me)

(All sound editing was done by me)

For animation, instead of posting every single shot and process again I re-edited the film to include captions of who worked on what.

MY CONTRIBUTION

Coloured by Ciara McGreevy

Week 7:

We’re very close to being done! Quite a few shots are in WIP for colours too.

What has been completed so far has been compiled to show Rachel our progress. I thought this was more effective than just showing random shots. Scene 6 isn’t included and neither is 5 because it hasn’t been done yet.

Here is progress for scene 6

I recorded some reference for this following shot because I wasn’t sure how someone putting on a jacket would work.

With that, my portion of scene 6 is now done. I can focus on finishing 5 now and then entirely on clean up.

–

I also recorded myself gagging this week for the scene of Valerie throwing up.

Rachel also suggested a change to scene 5 and scene 3. She thought it would be effective to have Vincent close the door to mirror Valerie slamming the door behind Meredith later. She also thought it would be effective to cut Valerie being attacked into the montage to provide further context. I added one more scene to replace some that we cut that felt ineffective, like the shot of Valerie dipping her paintbrush into the dead cat’s blood from the animatic.

I was struggling with Valerie’s hands, so I took reference images for it.

week 8:

Rough animation is now done! I’ve been focusing on clean up after finishing my shots, but it’ll go by a lot faster now that Will is doing it as well. Due to him working quite quickly, we have a good chunk of clean and coloured animation.

Scene 2 is fully cleaned up, but I’m editing the footage to compile for the end of this entry. Scene 4 is currently in progress.

week 9:

We’re in the middle of clean up and I was trying to edit together the complete rough edit when personal circumstances made it so I couldn’t work. I was unable to work effectively from Wednesday until Monday due to it. I alerted my lecturers and have focused on returning to my previous level of productivity despite the problem. We’re over 50% into clean up. I’m aiming to finish editing everything by the informal presentation but I’m also having tech issues currently making it difficult to work.

Week 10:

Rachel and Aodhan has organised an informal presentation which I didn’t take part in due to having an appointment and also not having the most recent edit ready due to the issues from the weekend. I did end up finishing the edit for the end of the day though, using After Effects and Premiere Pro. At this point, I’ve split the After Effects file into scenes because the layout file is too heavy on my PC.

Scene 6 Shot 1 was done in After Effects (3:58) and was a test using masks and animating them. It was an effective test and I’ve figured out how I’m going to approach environmental lighting now.

Will is going to start helping me clean up my shots as he’s nearly finished his clean up while I move on to comp. The plan has been that Will would finish clean up while I do comp. I want to get a few more complex shots done for my portfolio first, though. I’m also waiting for my external hard drive to arrive because working on the university computers and transferring files was becoming inefficient. The files were getting really big which led to longer upload times.

Week 4:

We’re now 50% of the way through rough animation!

Will is cleaning up some shots as he goes, so we have some progress in clean up already.

Week 4 was spent animating. Here’s the updates so far.

I went back to animate these shots from the beginning of scene 6 because I hadn’t drawn the photograph yet.

These are the first two iterations and it still wasn’t quite right. Valerie was fine but Meredith looked really off. So I put them temporarily into the roughs and then went back to fix it later.

Here’s the final photograph in a shot!

This scene is going to move but I’m going to do it in After Effects, Toonsquid really didn’t like the image and compressed it quite a lot so I’m going to redo it in After Effects using this as a template.

Week 5:

We’re now over 50% of the way through rough animation! I’m almost done scene 6 and working on scene 5 as well, I’ve included them at the bottom.

I’m really not a fan of this shot, but I’m considering what Sarah said about changing the ending. I ended up thumbnailing some shots because Will is now approaching his segment of the ending, and if that is going to change, it needs to be now. I thumbnailed an alternative ending confining it to the apartment.

These thumbnails were super quick but after talking Rachel through it, she agreed that this ending is better. So it cuts from the previous scene that will change slightly in angle, and then abruptly cut to Valerie packing a bag. The next shot is Valerie walking past the fridge when a polaroid of Meredith catches her eye. She takes it with her, puts on her jacket and then leaves the apartment. The end stays the same by cutting back to the apartment but this time we see the sun coming up and then it plays out the same.

A lot of this week was focused on the screaming scene because it was a very long and very grating scene to animate. Hearing myself scream over and over again give me a headache so I kept having to take breaks.

Week 6:

Rough animation count for this week. We’ve been moving quite quickly! There’s one shot in revision at the moment

Will has been cleaning up shots as he goes, which is going to save time during clean up later.

I’m very nearly finished all of my shots, so I’ve been cleaning up scene 2 over the last few weeks. For ease of following my progress, I chose to include these at the bottom.

I also worked on shots from scene 5 to give myself a break from scene 6.

Week 2:

Production is fully underway! I’m almost done scene 4.

With that I’m finished the first draft of scene 4! I’ll get feedback from Rachel next week and edit these together.

This shot I plan to do in After Effects. I’m going to test that soon because I think it will be easier than working in Toonsquid to open the door. It’ll also protect the quality of the image, which is something Toonsquid doesn’t do.

I also started on scene 6! The first handful of shots are done, I’m going to go back and do the walking shots now because they’re going to be harder.

Week 3:

I added pie charts to our shot list so we could track our progress in a more tangible way. I hadn’t thought to screenshot it before now to prove progress, but from now on I’ll post a weekly update on the pie chart, unless there is something significant that I feel I should comment on and therefore post more regularly.

The yellow bit is supposed to be red, occasionally when swapping values in Google Sheets, it can mess with the colours on the pie chart. So the not started is supposed to be red and WIP is supposed to be yellow. We’re about 40% of the way through rough animation, which I think is pretty good for where we’re at. I do notice that I’m starting to be a lot quicker when roughing animation.

This week was focused on starting layout in After Effects. Rachel recommended having the animatic in the corner while importing the newest animation. I wanted to have a master file, and then split into individual files if needed for performance reasons. So I started layout and importing all the backgrounds. The video above is an example of what it looked like for sc01.

I continued rough animation for scene 6. I wasn’t working in sequential order if I thought I could get the next shot done faster.

I also did some quick shots from 5 to get a start on that. I tend to have a very disorganised way of working, but this also helps keep me productive because I really struggle animating the same shot over and over again. When I do a long shot, I’ll usually change to a shorter shot after, and 5 had ones I knew I could get done really quickly.

I wanted to get this one out of the way because I knew it was going to be the most tedious one.

It was suggested by Sarah to reconsider our title so I started ideating for it. The popular choices right now are ‘The Masterpiece’, ‘No Longer You’, ‘When The Dark Stared Back’ and ‘Valerie’. I think ‘Valerie’ is a little plain, but it is effective. It’s an incredibly common naming convention, especially in character-centric narratives. The horror genre is no different. Tomie by Junji Ito is an example, George A. Romero’s Martin, even the more recent film Abigail (2024). It’s a simple way to name a piece of media, and fits Sarah’s recommendation that it should be something short and snappy. Next week, I’m going to continue scene 6.

Week 17:

This week was sound editing because we’re recording the scream today (28/01/2025). We’re also recording some reference footage today while in the VP room.

We filmed a few reference videos for shots in scene 2 as that was the scene I was working on.

The test shot was coloured as well! I included Will’s backgrounds as he’s now finished the majority of them.

I proceeded to comp it.

I referenced two videos in particular for the comp.

Manu Mercurial’s video is a great resource because he breaks down the basics of After Effects while also showing the practical use of what he’s explaining. I was constantly referring back to certain parts of the video to figure out something I wanted to do. His explanation of track mattes and masks was particularly useful.

The second video is a bit shorter and not as in-depth but still takes the viewer through the process of comping a shot, which I found really helpful. He explained precomps in a way I understood and made it really simple for me to add lighting. I found his video easy to follow and was relevant to the style of comp I was going for.

I’ve continued animating scene 2, but me and Will have decided to change one of the shots.

Shot 5 is Valerie stumbling to the bathroom. My issue with this shot is that it would still require another follow up shot to establish the bathroom and seemed needlessly complicated for what we need. I started animating it and made the progress above before rethinking the shot.

This shot establishes the bathroom far better and is a more effective way to set up the shot, it’s also a more interesting shot compositionally. I would like to make it longer but we’re working with this for now to see what feedback we get for it.

Week 18:

I finished the paintings!

Background paintings of Valerie’s.

This vanitas painting is inspired by 16th and 17th century paintings of the same genre. They’re paintings that closely resemble memento mori still lifes. Memento Mori means ‘remember that you must die’. This often represented through worldly possessions juxtaposed with a reminder of death like wilted flowers, skulls, etc.

‘Vanitas’, Adriaen van Utrecht (1642)

I really admire the atmosphere that’s instilled in these paintings. Softer lighting, a lot of nice contrast as well, it all gives the painting an atmosphere that’s hard to articulate. It’s isn’t exactly somber, but it isn’t happy either. The focus put on the skull with lighting is really effective at drawing the viewer’s eye around the canvas. The flowers are the biggest object, and they lead you to the skull.

Vanitas Still Life, Pieter Claesz (1625)

These paintings were slightly more generic as they’re just background paintings. I wanted to keep in mind the sort of artist the vampire is, and due to that I kept them dark with muted palettes and darker theming. If I had more time, I’d have liked to spend more time fleshing out the paintings and putting more though behind them.

I finished all rough animation for scene 2! I’ve started on scene 4.

I also finished the sound edit for the animatic.

I used sound from Pixabay. I didn’t have time to add every sound and the balancing is off, but it gives us a good idea of timing and gives me a framework to build upon for the final edit.

The other thing I finished were the model sheets.

I don’t think this model sheet is great, but there aren’t a lot of full body shots in the short film so I think these will be suitable. It has highlighted my need to practice solid drawing and turnarounds. Consistency is something I struggle with in art.

Week 15:

I worked on finishing Valerie’s turnaround because it was going to be necessary for production.

I really struggled with proportion and there’s still quite a few mistakes, but for now I think it’s alright. I used a few videos to help me.

This video was really helpful for giving me tips to keep proportion and drawing on model.

Manu Mercurial is a really useful resource for a lot of the 2D animation pipeline. He also gave good advice on solid drawing that helped when doing the turnarounds and breaks down characters to make it easier to draw on model by using ellipses, for example.

I finished clean-up of the example shot. There’s some volume control issues but I haven’t hand animated in about a year, probably longer so I’m trying to just focus on improving consistency as I go instead of fixating on a single shot. My bad habit is getting slowed down by perfectionism, and in an effort to mitigate that I’m choosing to move on and carry what I’ve learned into the next shot. I can always go back to fix shots, but if I keep slowing myself down then I there won’t be shots to fix. This clean up was really slow, but I know I’ll get quicker as time goes on.

Progress was also a little slow for the first week due to the holidays and my birthday, but I still coloured the clean up shot as well.

I had started roughing out scene 2 since I’d already started the scene, and Will is claiming the 1st one.

Week 16:

I plan to comp this shot for the presentation to give a better idea of how the film is going to look. It will also be my first time using After Effects so I want to start practicing as soon as possible to get a grip with the program.