Escap-e-ade
(2017-18)
Mimi, a school going child afraid of loud thunders and gloomy skies finds peace in the silent companionship of a bird. Terror strikes when a single drop of water is about to fall over her companion, disrupting her peace. The next moment she finds herself alone, in a forest flooded with calm water.
Editing of the film was done by taking inspiration from old animation techniques like multiplane camera juxtaposed with hand-held camera movement and jarring cuts. Meanwhile, the sound begins with an almost dream like tropical rain, progresses towards reality and the pitter-patter on objects (signifying civilization) and then breaks into the psyche of a vulnerable person.
Main tools used in the making were Adobe Photoshop, TV Paint, Adobe After Effects and a camera (for shooting character acting reference videos).
Loosely based on my personal experiences of loud rains which resulted in many creatures around my school, pleasant and otherwise, to evade their hiding spots - Escapeade works with ecologism and nostalgia while trying to embody improbable over the impossible; showing reality the way it is experienced rather than actual truth of life reality.
Character exploration and rough storyboard
Final character design
I designed Mimi after studying a few childhood photographs of me and my classmates from school. After I developed a grasp of the proportions, I worked on simplifying the design since I wished to work with simple shapes which are highly textured and detailed in their final render.
Backgrounds
