Pre-Production
Logline
At the dinner table, a young woman escapes into a surreal stage, where she pieces together her identity and chooses to write her own script.
Genre
Theme
Lenght
Experimental Animation
03:25 minutes
Identity, Family Expectations, Internalized pressure
Treatment
A bustling family dinner, laughter, chatter, clinking dishes. The protagonist sits quietly, observing. Suddenly, all eyes turn to her. Questions pile on: “What’s next? University? A career?” She doesn’t answer. Beside her plate lies a translucent script, visible only to her. Her fate written down, choices that feel predetermined.
Cut to a stage. Empty seats, a single spotlight. She stands before a bare mannequin and a cluttered worktable. A metronome-like ticking begins. She struggles to assemble an identity: sewing, attaching, piecing together mismatched limbs, clashing fabrics. The ticking grows frantic. She hesitates, collapsing before the half-formed figure.
Her eyes drift stage left. Besides the curtain: discarded mannequins, mismatched, abandoned identities. She looks back at the one she built, pauses, then embraces it. Imperfect, but hers.
Back at the dinner table. She picks it up and rips the script apart, pages flying around her. She takes a breath and mouths words the audience can’t hear, her truth, finally spoken. I’m going to be an artist.
Ending line on screen: There’s no final version of me. Just the one I am now.
Moodboard
Early Character Design
Beat Boards
Concept Art
Animation Tests
Set Prototype
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Set Fabrication
For the set, I cut down wooden boards to size, and using wood glue and nails, created a wooden frame where the stage could sit. For starters, I painted all the wood parts of the stage in black and added clay foam to the sides where the pillars would be. Out of scraps of wood and craft blocks I made some miniature props, such as a table, wooden crate etc.
Once the wooden glue dried, I started creating the front of the frame, connecting the 2 pillars with an ornamental arch. I used some wooden rods for the curtain to sit on and be moved. To finish up the set I glued on a floor texture that acted as the flooring of the theatre. I painted the pillars, arch and remaining details.
Puppet Fabrication
For the puppet, I planned to have her head cast in silicone. I started with sculpting the head with polymer clay and baking it to cure. Next step, I created a silicone mold of a 1:1 ratio of Platinum Silicone and waited for it to cure (approx. 4 hours).
I created an armature inside her head using foam clay and aluminum wire to allow for movement of her jaw, upper lip, and eyebrows. This test proved to be unsuccessful; the eyebrow wires are a bit lower than I would have liked. A second attempt proved to be a failure as well, so I abandoned the idea of the silicone on the head and instead, used silicone for the hands. I switched to a clay mask face that is attached with magnets to her head. I painted the mask with oil paint to add that texture to the puppet and tie it together with the parts in the film, which will be painted. For the hair, I used yarn that was painted and glued, and attached it to the back of the skull, and created a hairline on the mask.
Final Look of The Puppet
The clothing was sewed, and allowed for tie downs to be used during the production shooting of the scenes. She is a fully articulated puppet, every limb is poseble, even the fingers. Her face is textured to resemble the look of paintings, and has marked dots across the face to allow for an easy seamless tracking across the scenes during post-production.
Behind The Scenes
