I decided to make an animated film. It is a silly story really. You can spend so much time thinking at what your opus magnum is going to look like. The film that is going to change the world. But at the end I just thought, to hell with it, I am going to make a film about the first thing that pops into my mind. As a mother of small children at the time it was a mystery to me where all the socks dissapeared to. So I imagined that there were tiny trolls living in the laundry room, eating socks. And this is their story.
After many years working in animation, illustration and vizualisation, I wanted to make a short film. I had worked in 3d, motion graphics and games mostly, making short films for others, but as so often with comissioned work, there are limitations to budgets and rarely any opportunity to explore and try different techniques. You simply do not have the time or budget to fail. And I dreamt of for a very, very long time (all my life) to tell stories with animation. When making animation for games it is often a very mechanical approach. The character needs to walk, run, shoot or whatever. And it needs to loop perfectly and the movement needs to match each other seamlessly. So I wanted to make characters with feelings, that interact and move and tell a story. And I wanted to draw. Because I love to draw. I made this film in my spare time. It took many years and many times I didn´t think I would ever finish it. I started and restarted more times than I can remember.
Preproduction is key – I learned it the hard way
Below some images from early character and layout sketches. The characters went through many iterations before I found a design that worked form me.
I had a good grasp in theory of what is requiered of a preproduction, and I had made other big projects before, but I hugely underestimated how much is to be done in preproduction on a hand drawn 2d animation.
Having worked mostly in 3d animation where I think the approach to a storyboard is slightly different as there is no need to a tie down of the actual drawings. What I made was more of a beatboard and it became painfully clear to me when I started the actual production and drawing process that it was not enough and I ran into a ton of problems where the characters shifted in size during the animation. Now, after I learned this tough lesson, I would do first a beatboard, a storyboard that tells the story and different scenes and camera angles. And then I would do a storyboard with most of the most important keyframes that can then be used as a guide in the production.
I made most of my rough animations on my ipad in Rough animator. It is quick and easy to use. And there were some magical moments when the characters started to live their own life. Almost like I´ve heard writers describe how characters in a novel start acting on their own. And I think it was this feeling that kept me going. These little creatures wanted to live and I was very much in love with them.
So you made a film – now what?
Off course I had dreams, but for me the main goal was to finish. But I sent the film to different film festivals and got accepted! The film was first screened at La Guarimba film festival in 2021. I wanted to go, but the pandemic made life difficult. It was also screened at Cinanima, Festa Anca, Festival Play och Fredrikstad animation festival. And I was really glad. This was a huge step for me and a great personal achievment.
To any aspiring animators out there who wish to make your own film my advice is this:
- Do your preproduction thoroughly. Make animation tests of you characters so that you know wich bits and parts will get you into trouble, and what details that will be time consuming to make. Like a walk. And alter the design accordingly.
- Make a betaboard AND a storyboard and tie down your drawings. I know you want to get into the drawing and production. But a bit of patience will pay off in the end.
- Make a soundtrack to work with, however simple. You might not have a budget to get someone to make a good sound for you, but do make something once the storyboard is finished. It will help you immensely.
- It is better to do a little everyday than to wait for that great strech of time to appear (it never does).
- Love your characters and just do it!