MAKING "GO FETCH" Part 1: Motivation, Concept, Design

In this series of blog posts, I will be developing a short film titled “Go Fetch”. I look forward to sharing as much of this process with you as possible. Let’s begin!

The Motivation

Why make a short film?

There are many reasons to produce and animate your own short film. Perhaps you are a graduate student completing your degree, an experimental animator showcasing your technique, or a larger studio looking to generate some publicity.

As an independent animator, the making of a short film is a lot like writing a song, painting a landscape, or writing a poem. You are creating a unique, personal vision. It is impulsive, a truly creative act. You’ve got an image in your head that you just can’t shake until you get it out. For me, I often approach a short film as an opportunity to learn something new and to challenge myself.

And, yes. Making a short film is just fun. There is so much discovery that happens, personally, as part of the process. And one of the greatest joys is in working with others when the opportunity presents itself: other artists, editors, a composer and sound designer. Collaboration brings new life to the work. I see this blog as a great way to start that spirit of collaboration, communication, and sharing of ideas.

Finally, when the stars align, perhaps the film finds it's way into a festival. Screening your film with a live audience, and enjoying the work and company of other animators and filmmakers is a thrill.

Why this short film?

There are several factors and goals driving the making of this short. For one, I want to animate the heck out of some characters-- hit key poses, breakdowns, and extremes with confidence, have solid timing and spacing, and exaggerate the squash and stretch of the characters as much as possible. Working in a more traditional way, I hope to create something really fresh.

As an animation professor, I am often referring to these principles of animation when instructing students and I want to practice these fundamentals myself, both to build my confidence and to focus on craft. In addition to theory, I am also teaching the computer program Toon Boom Harmony and, while I am quite familiar with the tools and workflow, I want to work in a very rigorous way: keeping characters on model, transitioning well between fully rigged and hand-drawn segments, and possibly working within a more dimensional stage, using best practices at each step of the process.

So, with Go Fetch I am striving to add a new and different project to my reel, practice traditional, cartoony techniques, and become more familiar with a technical workflow.

The Concept

I started sketching ideas for Go Fetch at the start of the year, January 2020, and got it quite far along, designing characters and storyboarding the whole film. It was a combination of teaching obligations and shelter-in-place schedule-shifting that sidelined the project for a few months. But several weeks ago I found the sketches I’d made nine months previous, and decided to pick up where I left off.

This break in time happens quite a lot with my more personal projects, and is helpful. I can see a story and characters and designs with clear eyes, removed from the original ideas. Details that I was blind to are suddenly very evident, and changes can come quickly. Was it really a good idea, or just something I was fixated on at the time? I have a fresh perspective.

My initial film concepts tend to be spare by design. By limiting characters and certain graphics, each element takes on special significance. I like this look and I like this challenge. When given just enough visual cues, the viewer fills in the blanks with their own imagination. This minimal approach also serves a very practical purpose. It's just faster. One of the biggest hurdles I've faced in the making of short films is simply completing them. Because they are often made on borrowed time, any (little) thing you can do to simplify the process can buy you precious days and weeks and carry the project through to final.

That said, I did explore other looks for the film. More color, different pallets. I think a lot of it just comes down to personal preference. I love the painterly look, but ultimately feel like the film is stronger in a more graphic style. Like a New Yorker cartoon, spare and expressive, closer to abstract.

The Design

I’ve honestly been trying to remember how some of the designs and beats evolved. I think the character of the Man came first, and the Dog after that. As you can see in the above sketch, the dog was once a pigeon.

My stories almost always evolve from an initial image or drawing, rather than from a written outline, for example. It is the image of the character that sparks the story. Why this character? Where are they? Why are they drawn this way? What happens when they interact with another character or with the setting? The process of developing these original designs is intuitive.

In addition to the characters, I also look closely at the other elements that have presented themselves: The setting as a park, a park bench, the ball, the Man's cane. Each element should be on screen for a reason. Each element is in service to the story, in my view. There is a back and forth between design and story that happens continuously.

After working-out the design of the dog, the design of the man character was revisited and elements shared between the two: muzzle and mustache, square body and square head. I don’t totally remember where the idea of the red ball came from, and I don’t believe I had any conscious intention when I used the striking color. But I do believe it works: It is that which is between the two characters, it represents their conversation and that which is valued, it is the carrot and the distraction, the object that drives the thought and narrative in many ways.

The Next Step

Often, I’m so in love with a design that I just want to start animating, but that has gotten me into trouble on numerous occasions. It seems obvious to say, but I find it much better to take the time to work out a story as much as possible before diving into the animation. I can fool myself into thinking that I know what the story is and it’s a good one, before really tearing it apart.

The story.

This is simply the most important thing. You have to have one, or there’s just nothing to watch, but it can take surprising amount of time and effort and breathing room to find all the right moments. I'll dive more deeply into this stage of development with the next blog post, MAKING A SHORT FILM, PART 2: Storyboard

Is there any part of the process you are especially interested in? Let me know. I’d be happy to elaborate on those details in future posts.