So this is my senior Capstone project. A nightmarish tale of one man feeling the other end of the knife.
I came up with this idea my sophomore year of college ofr a project. We had to create an original story, storyboard it, and then convert that storyboard to an animatic. I always loved this story. So when it came time for Capstone, I had a choice. Create a motion graphics work, which is what I wanted to do for my career, or go for broke and create a 2D animation. I chose the later. If I spend my whole life doing motion graphics, when would I have another chance to create a short animation?
All of the assets were created in Illustrator and then moved over to After Effects. I animated the whole film using the Puppet Tool. My first time using the plug-in! At first it was a struggle, but by the end of the project I had mastered the tool.
The music is "I Am Glad, 'Cause I'm Finally Returning Back Home" (Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой) by Eduard Khil. You might recognize it as the Trololo song. I wanted to give the animation a goofy ambience, since it took place in a dream. Trololo fit it perfectly. I actually e-mailed Mr. Khil for his blessing to use his song and was surprised when he wrote back! He was delighted that people were using his music in such interesting ways. Unfortunately, Mr. Khil fell into a coma and passed away before I could send him my film. I like to believe he would have loved it.
The animation isn't the greatest and there are a couple of glitches with the lighting, but I am so proud of this project. I went from having half a story to completing an animated short in eight months. The most important thing is that I had a blast making. Sure, I had some stressful moments but it was so much fun and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.
