MAKING ▲ WAVES
SENIOR FILM - May 2016
Making Waves from Chaz Grussendorf on Vimeo.
SUMMARY
Making Waves is a lighthearted story about a young cat that goes on a camping trip to the lake with his friends. He soon finds out that he's not keen on water and, not wanting to be embarrassed, doesn't tell his friends. His friends then try to get him into the water which ends in a heartwarming and funny experience. The story is about opening up to your friends so that they can support you instead of hiding your true feelings.
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ARTISTIC VISIONMy film is called Making Waves and it’s a cute and comedic two minute short film with a focus on 2D animation to show narrative and emotions without dialogue.
I’m making my film using Toon Boom Harmony and Adobe After Effects. Aesthetically the scenes will be rather colorful to brighten nature and I want vibrant painterly trees and water to liven the camping landscape. The characters however will be simple cell shading for ease of production and to give the film a bit of a juvenile feel. I will also utilize filters to help give atmosphere to the wilderness. The music will be simple but upbeat to compliment the mood. The whole film will have ambiance in the nature and lake sounds along with sound effects. There will be no dialogue but the animals will make their appropriate noises instead. |
During this project I am learning the responsibilities as a director and a producer. I must manage a team of animators as well as reaching out to other fields such as sound designers, a composer, and several layout artists. I have successfully created a production schedule both as an overview and how each month must be spent to stay on track. So far it has been both a fun and taxing experience but working with these other animators and seeing how passionate some of them are to work on my film only excites me for future projects I hope to be a part of.
The poster to the right was posted to recruit helpful hands and other creative minds to the team. |
CHARACTERS
There are five simple characters including the main character. They’re all animals for appeal and cuteness. The main character is a cat and his friends are a a bear, a fox, and a coatimundi. I picked the species of the friends to seem more suited to a forest or lake camping trip since those animals are more native to that area versus the everyday house cat who isn't too fond of the wilderness. Bear Mom was made more realistic for comedic effect. The character model sheets were later added with the up-to-date designs of the characters.
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ANIMATIC
January 23, 2016 Below is my final animatic. Sounds and music are not final, used only as scratch tape for clarity.
October 7, 2015 To the right is my 2015 animatic and also my third pass. I'm keeping it here to show how drastically the story changed after getting input from my peers, professors, and friends from other majors.
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