This post is showcasing the development of the backgrounds for the animated short film "Backwater", which I happened to make at the Animation School Hamburg with a talented team of people.
If you'd like to see the movie before reading through this making-of-post, you may find it here: http://vimeo.com/44505918
And now we'll step right into the art of "Backwater"…
The first panel depicts a selection from the long pre-production period.
We tried a lot of different approaches in style and technique. Although already decided that we wanted to have the film as much being hand-made as possible.
Set sketches in black and white to construct the picture were then put into small color keys. These keys still used to be experimental as to technique.
At this point the story had a major revision and headed into another direction which made vital changes of the design inevitable.
The colorscript on the right was made with the new storyline in mind and shows the crucial images from the storyboard in a color progression. Color is an important part of storytelling to emphasize mood and emotions. This quality became the guideline for all the color-choices in the film.
The approach to layout was like in classic animation but it didn't feel right for the new version of the story, especially with the rather special use of color in the film. So the goal was to find a simple style of lines and compositions that still can evoke a sense of detail.
The image at bottom right established a more graphic approach.
Basically, the picture was split into three parts: foreground, midground, background.
Also getting into more details at this point concerning light and color nuances.
Yet another change in story was made at this point but not as big as the first change. Although it definitely had an impact on the feel which the design had to accommodate.
What you see above is the key image for all the backgrounds.
I made it over night after conceiving the whole idea at once while lying in bed fading drifting of to sleep. Obviously I'd been stopped by that "heureka"-moment.
Even the technique had been completely new. We'd been experimenting with acrylics and watercolors and were set for acrylics, whereas the image above is made with pastels.
And so the style had been set and every other aspect of design was adjusted.
Here is the adapted colorboard for the final story, condensed to the most the decisive
images and executed in pastels.
Based on the storyboard panels and set design, production layouts were drawn. These were blueprints for the painted layers. The lines were traced onto the pastel-paper, areas were masked and coated.
The single layers were scanned into the computer and edited digitally.
(left) The layers were cut out and picture was put together. Some repairs and color adjustments were applied wherever needed before all backgrounds were compared and graded to ensure a harmonic color progression.
(right) In the compositing process lighting effects were added and final adjustments mad if necessary.
Here are some photos from the "Background Manufacture", so you might get a little of how the backgrounds were actually painted.
In this final panel you have an overview of the production process by means of one background:
- layout blueprint drawing for each layer
- every layer hand-painted with pastels
- scanned into the computer and cut out
- adjustments
- compositing
Well, that's it, just a whole lot of work!
Which was fun and also very distressful sometimes.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I will try my best to answer.
Hope you enjoyed this little insight on animation production as well as the movie! (You have seen it, right? :-)
