Short Film by Ana Villarreal
Storyboarding
Most film start with a general idea, but storyboard ing helps to organize those ideas in a cohesive, understandable story line. It took about a month for me to finally settle on a good story line, and even then the final product was quite different than the original storyboards.
Concept Art
I knew going into concept design I wanted to keep a child-like feel to the film. From relatively flat backgrounds to bright color choices, I really wanted to replicate the free-will of a child. It was hard at times finding a balance between chaos and well thought out compositions, but I am well pleased with how my project turned out.
Animating
The animation process by far was the longest step in the film making process. Having chosen stop-motion as my choice of animation style, animation sessions required time and patience. Several hours of work usually resulted in inly a few seconds of usable footage. Also, given the medium of clay on glass, often my characters are not salvageable since I mix clay as I animate. Therefore, if I make an error while animating I either start the scene over or try to fix the mistake in post production composition.
Post Production & Composition
Post production was where I really got to see my idea come to life. With added elements of FX sounds, music, shot transitions, etc. I was able to fine-tune my concept. I worked with Adobe After Effects for textual elements and camera pans/movement, Adobe Premier Pro for compiling .mp4s/.mp3s and transitions, and finally Adobe Media Encoder to convert and compress my final renders.
