The aim of this project if to use two different methods of animation to create two sequences that fit together. One is of a character in a room by themselves and go to knock on the door for some reason, the other is a mirror image of that sequence but the character hears a knock at the door and goes to answer it.
I've started to explore different directions to go in for this project by just doing some sketches and studies to get my head in the right space and consider as many options as possible.
This was the first thing I drew after discussing the project in class. For some reason my mind went first to settings rather than characters, and I thought that a door in the middle of the woods that leads to another room despite appearances could be fun. It had a slightly whimsical Narnia-esque feel to it. From that I thought about what sort fo character would be on this side of the door which lead me to some character sketches I'd done in my own time of woodland animals in cloaks. I started them really simply with a large pencil brush in Photoshop and then made more in detail versions later.
This thought then developed into more sketches of settings, and thoughts of shooting the background live action in the woods with a little cardboard door propped up against a tree. I also explored different more human characters and how they could be in a room full of plants or be a kid in bed scared of the monster on the other side of the door.
I also thought about the cause for the first character knocking on the door could be that there's a window in the door and they see a light come on through it, or see a light switch on through the cracks around the door, so I drew some sketches of this in Photoshop.
There's another set of characters I've considered is a pairing of people made to represent the sun and moon. I feel like the designs could be really fun to get into and that they'd have a good personality and setting to mirror on either side of the door.
I thought about other short films that are set in restricted settings and characters for inspiration on how to get these two characters to interact with each other. The first film that came to my head like this was The Maker by Zealous Creative.
I love this film as the characters have a lot of personality and the room as a world feels very believable.
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