Their story, in their words…
For my Mark Evison Foundation submission I’ve been working on a short animation with heavy inspirations from the fantasy and analog horror genres, and it’s been an extremely educational experience.
Having almost completed it I can now see how much I underestimated the project; before I started work on it I was imagining 15 minutes of content, because I’d worked on projects of long lengths before. However, what I failed to consider was that in those projects I had been much less ambitious with the breadth of the project: this animation contained multiple one-off models, a more specific soundtrack than what I was used to working on, and multiple art styles I had to problem solve separately. I had expected it to be completed by halfway into the summer holiday. Despite cutting almost two thirds of the content, I’m still only just finishing it off now.
That said, it has by no stretch of the imagination been a negative experience. I highly enjoyed working with the shaders and textures creatively to create distinct visual styles that I will absolutely work with again. Experimenting with what does and doesn’t work in a project like this was definitely the thing that has delayed it the most, but it was also the main reason I decided to take it on in the first place. Also, having to cut the project down to more like 5 minutes had the valuable effect of forcing me to think carefully about what parts I would enjoy most about the concept, and to more carefully consider what wasn’t actually as important to the project as I believed.
The project as originally pitched was actually slightly different to what I have now in other ways as well; the fantasy elements of the idea shifted from the pulpy sword and sorcery takes on the genre to being closer to grimdark narratives to better work with the analogue horror elements, to the degree that the part of the script included in my submission is no longer in the script. I also ended up drawing from unexpected sources of inspiration for the parts I hadn’t fully fleshed out as well: the pitch mentioned IKEA style graphics, which ended up being shifted over to a lego instruction manual because it was easier to work with in 3D, and other sections took visual cues from Monty Python and PaRappa the Rapper.
In conclusion, this has been a highly enjoyable experience that I think will determine how I think about similar projects going forward and might even help me manage bigger projects by avoiding the pitfalls I ran into in this one. Thanks!
