Project: Whispering Woods Part 4: Post-Production

As production comes to a close, editing is required to make a masterpiece. I assembled these cartoon clips on Adobe Premiere, add a little dash of effects, sounds and music during the process to cook up the perfect recipe. Voice acting isn't as easy as it seems, it takes a lot of takes to get my voice right and in sync with the animation. So yeah, I played all of the roles in this production. Originally, the King (who spoiler alert, is the Deer's father) was supposed to be voiced by my dad. However, due to tight scheduling, I ended up voicing him instead!

That's all I could tell about the making of this short! See you on the next blog as the Silang Animation team and I continue to bring the best in animation.

Project: Whispering Woods Part 3: Animation Production

Here comes the fun, yet stressful part of the project. It took me 3 months to complete a 2-3 minute animated short like Whispering Woods. I use Toon Boom Harmony Essentials for this rigorous process, with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere as my backup dancers.

This, my dear friends is a transparent animation frame. I drew frames one-by-one, sometimes extending one frame to three with a little Toon Boom magic.

Here's a background I made using Photoshop. Pretty as a picture, isn't it?

When they fuse together like Steven Universe's Crystal Gems, they form this magnificent tapestry of creativity and imagination.

Stay Tuned for Part 4: Post-Production in just a few days!

Project: Whispering Woods 

Part 2: Storyboards

Storyboards are basically a filmmaker's way to organize his or her work, and imagine what it will look like. Here are my early storyboards from my Whispering Woods project, showcasing each scene in its finest details.

Unfortunately, some scenes never made it to the final cut, since my short's going to be at least 2-3 minutes long...

But nevertheless, I still miss those cut scenes anyways.

Stay tuned for Part 3: Animation

Project: Whispering Woods

Part 1: Concept & Design

The idea for this animated short came from my fascination on fairytales, particularly Little Red Riding Hood as well as the werewolf legend. I researched on the works of Perrault and Grimm, before I came across this new fairytale about a boy who turned into a deer called 'Brother and Sister', also a work of Grimm's.

Our main protagonist is Rose, a character inspired by Little Red Riding Hood. She was named after the flower of the same name, had brunette hair and brown eyes. Her hairstyle is a bob with a cowlick, and her age is 6-7 years old. She is determined to help anyone or anything in need, as evidenced by her saving the Deer earlier in the story. I consider her a superhero who, after she became a savior ends up being saved.

Dashiell, the Deer is the deuteragonist of the short. He is a roe deer fawn who is later revealed to be a human prince by the short's end. Dashiell's character is inspired by the Brother from Grimm's 'Brother and Sister' story, who is also turned into a deer. He is 7-8 years old, has blond hair, blue eyes and a crew cut. Dashiell is the damsel in distress from the moment we first saw him, but he ended up becoming a savior at the climax. The reason why I made him blond is because of my love for a certain blond-haired Marvel superhero named Thor, as well as how I can imagine what my future boyfriend would look like.

Dashiell's deer form was inspired by the roe deer, as well as Disney's Bambi. In order to design his cursed form, I looked at Youtube videos and National Geographic documentaries about deer, studying the unique animal's movements and behaviors.

A story wouldn't be complete without a villain, which is why I designed Lon, the werewolf as the short's main antagonist. Lon is named after horror actor Lon Chaney Jr, who played the Wolfman in the 1941 film of the same name. He has brownish-gray fur, and a pair of yellow-green eyes. Lon's design not only echoes his real-life counterpart, the Eurasian Wolf. His design is also influenced by Mr. Tod, a character created by Beatrix Potter, as he also wears a classy trench coat himself.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my production, as I move on to the storyboarding process.