fears

Fears are visible as constant companions of their owners. These creatures can make people’s lives more difficult, but they can also be very useful.

This was my graduation film at Vancouver Film School, produced over 3.5 months, and my first film.

2 mins | Canada | 2015
production: Vancouver Film School
direction, animation: Nata Metlukh
sound: Matthew Thomas

process

First, I conducted research on the topic, brainstorming and sketching ideas about fears: what they can do to people and how they can interact with them.

A story about a fearless guy who comes to a big city began to take shape. In the very first version, the guy even died because of his carelessness.

storyline and storyboard thumbs

storyboard

character design

first pass, to explore the colors and shapes

final design

facial expressions

colors

My favorite part was color exploration. To me, colors are crucial for visual appeal, and I spent a lot of time on color blocking and color correction.

first attempt

final colorscript

abstract-ish background

animation

The most elaborate part was the animation. I animated the characters in Animate and created textures in Photoshop frame-by-frame, maintaining the rough-clean look.

crowd test

animatic

clean and colored, with fixed jittering caused by a camera move

rough pass with a camera move

final shot with bg and painted textures

references

I’m a big fan of references, so I record people and objects on my phone whenever there’s a complicated movement to be animated.

For the swinging bus shot, I first created a paper model of a real NY bus, printed and glued it. Then I roughed out the key positions, cleaned up, and colored everything, adding the background and effects.