making the end credits animation
Original Storyboard
Potential Style Ideas
I was really inspired by the paper-cut look of the Juno title sequence and originally planned to physically paper animate with printed frames, colored pencils, scissors, and a copying machine. But being in my final year of high school, occupied with swim practice, college applications, and the expectation of keeping straight A's, I found that imitating the paper-cut look digitally would be a more efficient and less time consuming method to achieve the look I wanted.
The original idea from the film came from a direct message I received in my school's digital classroom inbox. Someone had hacked into my friend's, who was part of the marching band's color guard, account and sent me this message. And I thought it was funny.
Animating
When I decided to digitally animate, at the time I had never animated anything. I didn't know what software to use, how I'd combine the live action videos with 2D drawings, or how I'd correctly time it all. I created this test run by taking screenshots of the video I had of Cameron, importing them into a background eraser app, combining it with a colored pencil background, and putting the frames in an iMovie timeline.
I showed the test to my high school friend who had done the special effects makeup for my films, Alexa Bermudez. She was familiar with my end credits idea and was artistically more advanced than I was, having a portfolio full of digital art. Understanding what the project entailed, she suggested I animate with Procreate. Using Procreate, I was able to get a cleaner look, have better control of frame rate, and easily combine 2D animations with the live action cut outs.
On weekends and with any free time I had at school, I'd shoot the live action portions (mostly filmed on my iPhone 6). During AP Art, my lunch period, and my World Religions class, I would animate the sequences on my school iPad and then edit the finalized clips into the short film's timeline. I finished the credits and the film, in early November 2021. Just in time for college applications.
Extra
On the last day of filming at school, the whiteboard in the classroom we used as home base was filled with doodles, signatures, and notes. These doodles were later incorporated into the end credits.
