Directed by Nicole Solis and co-directed by Al Fontanilla, Night Shift (2020) is a sweet short film that follows a young girl who wants desperately for someone she loves to return, so much so that she finds a world they can be together again.
Below is a comprehensive collection of all the work I contributed to this project, vaguely organized in amorphous blobs of related content. If you are looking for my work in a specific department (Storyboarding, Character Design, etc.) you can find them in the header tabs above, which organize my work by department.
The full short:
The animatic:
Visual Development
While my focus throughout the development of this short was Storyboarding and Animatic, when I was first introduced to the project I riffed off of some of the initial sketches Nicole Solis developed and added some elements that fortunately stuck!
Additionally, I created a small selection of doodles and drawings as I explored the characters and their dynamics with one another.
Storyboards
Several versions of the short were developed and polished before and throughout production.
The first “final” draft
Below is the first storyboard se for the full pass of Night Shift - This is what was used to introduce our production team to the project and the guiding boards for the Layout and Animation team to block out and time the short. As they ran into obstacles, the animatic was adjusted and boards were added/removed/replaced to accommodate time and visual appeal.
- The Issues -
Ultimately, the reason these boards were changed many times over the course of production was that the opening sequence of Hana in the window took too long to establish the space and characters. There was too much time spent in “reality” with just Hana, and we wanted to focus on her relationship with the Moon Woman and he mother. In addition, there were a few shots that I’d allotted too much time to - while it worked in the animatic format, those shots felt like they dragged on in Layout.
- The Solution -
In subsequent drafts throughout production, I worked alongside the Layout department and our guiding professors to develop an opening that took seconds to establish what our original draft took a minute to do. As seen in the final animatic and the final short, cutting that portion shorter gave us ample time to focus on the ethereal beauty of the fantasy world and the quiet comfort of the final morning scene.
Final Animatic
This animatic was the production crew’s first full view of the short in concept - from here, we focused on creating the assets and tweaking the camera movement and shots to fit our desired timeframe and skill level.
Below are each of the individual boards if you would like to flip through at your own pace.
Production Reference
In addition to adjusting the boards and animatic as Layout continued and acting as co-director to give feedback and notes, I was also put on developing model sheets for some of the characters as our Modeling Department began work. Additionally, as Layout continued work and had to collaborate with the Modeling Department to make a placeholder set, I created a quick map of the fantasy cloudscape with references to the path characters took, as well as landmarks and sizing reference.
Human Mom Turnaround: A turnaround developed for the character of Mom to get the base shape and proportions for her body, face, and hairstyle consistent.
Human Mom Turnaround (with clothes): A turnaround developed for the character of Mom to get the base shape and proportions for her body, face, and hairstyle consistent, as well as give reference for her clothing.
Moon Woman Turnaround: A turnaround developed for the character of Moon Woman to get the base shape and proportions for her body, face, and hairstyle consistent. Originally Moon Woman was meant to have more caricatured features than Human Mom, her mirror, but that was scrapped when the two lost similarity with one another.
Sun Man Turnaround: A turnaround developed for the character of Sun Man to get the base shape and proportions for his body, face, and hairstyle consistent. Additionally, reference for his hand size was put in as there was trouble with his hands appearing too small. A mirror turnaround for Human Dad was never developed.
Layout Path Reference Map: A simple map developed for Layout to track the movement of Hana and Moon Mom throughout the fantasy sequence. The red cloud is marked as a reference for a cloud that Hana is tossed into.
Layout Path Reference Map: A simple map developed for Layout to reference where keyshots happen within the space, using boards fulled from the final animatic.
Illustrations
In the Fall of 2020, our Surfacing Department was in full swing, working to make up time lost by the loop the pandemic put us through. Below are illustrations I created for the picture frames in the household to make the home feel more lived-in.
End Credits Illustrations
Illustrations developed for the end credits sequence of the short.
