Making a Film In A Weekend – By Dani Abram
For many, the bank holiday brought with it well earned rest and recuperation from the day job – a chance to sit in the sun and forget about your cares for a long weekend. Not for Dani Abram. Dani is an animator, illustrator and compositor who took the break as a chance to challenge herself to make a film over the three days.
A Film About Migraines is a public service announcement spoof based on the director’s own problems with migraines and the way they are treated by non sufferers. As making a film over a weekend seems like the perfect recipe for inducing a migraine, one has to wonder why she even bothered. Speaking of the reasons why she did it Dani said,
“I was staring down the barrel of a long weekend with no plans and an empty house. I was also coming down from a pretty nasty migraine. Whilst whinging about it, I found it hard to describe what I could see during an attack. Migraines are often accompanied with visual distortions, which can be really frightening if you’ve never had them before. Frightening, but ripe for animating!”
With just her own wits, the encouragement of friends and the vocal talents of Lee Adams, the short was completed on schedule. Writing for Skwigly, Dani charts the ups and downs of her own production process in diary form.
Title Card
Saturday 28th May
06:30: I started immediately, with a title card to get me in the mood!08:20: Typed up the script and sent it to friends and writers that I know. Began sketching characters in Photoshop.
09:00: Received enough feedback to make a few tiny tweaks to the script and finalise. Began building the main character in Anime Studio Pro.
10:00: Forced to take a break due to having a massage booked! FOR MIGRAINES!
12:00: Back home, began building the Office set.
15:00: Both characters now built. Surprise audio file from a friend who volunteered to be the Narrator. Had a mini freak out, ate crisps for dinner.Office Set
16:00-17:00: Began building both characters mouth phonemes.
17:20: Watched Public Service Broadcasts for inspiration.
18:00: Worked out that I had about 4 hours worth of work left for the day and started to get crabby because I was hungry. Went hunting for leftovers. Wrote a to do list. Still got nothing resembling an animatic.
19:00-23:30: Spent all evening rigging both characters ready for animation and attempting to record my own voice acting but suffered stage fright! Went to bed a bit angry!Sunday 29th May
06:30: Two cups of coffee. Spent one hour creating a tracking document that made me feel so much better! Panicked about audio.
07:30: Make myself talk into my phone and eventually get some audio to start timing my animatic to. Rough animatic based on best guess/Narrator audio is 2.15 mins.
09:30: Breakfast eggs!
10:00: Began animating first shot!Animating Wally’s Mouth
10:44: Sent my first render to friends for feedback! SH004 if you must know.
12:26: Two shots rendered, took a break for quick dip in the bath. I’m not a total monster!
14:00-16:00: animated, animated, animated. (Cheese and crackers 15:39) Animating the migraine aura actually made me feel sick!
18:00: Dinner break, felt very drained. One minute of footage animated.
20:15: Panicked because I realised all the hardest shots were being left ’til last. I had planned on having animation finished by end of Sunday. Still have POV sequence and Death Sequence left to do.
22:30: Rendered what I had so far to pep myself up.
23:30: Wrote gigantic to do list for tomorrow. Felt slightly giddy. Arse is well and truly numb.Monday 30th May
06:20: Promised myself a 0700AM lie in but my brain had none of it. Fell asleep last night thinking about ways set up the POV shot. Decided to ‘cheat’ it in After Effects because I’m quicker. Infact I’ve decided to cheat a lot of stuff in After Effects because I’m better using it.
08:00: Finished two shots super early so rewarded myself with breakfast. Then had a massive brain fail and sat and stared into space for way too long.
10:00: I decided to block the last remaining shots, the two biggest at 20 seconds each. Made a plan to stop animating at midday.
12:19: Completed big POV/Lipsync shot. Began blocking death scene.Wally’s Boss
16:30: Couldn’t spend any more time animating so had to cut my losses and source some audio. Finding audio is the worst. I could only listen to 10 ‘vintage piano’ tracks before forgetting who I was and what I was even doing here.
17:00-19:30: Laying audio, cutting and trimming to make the whole thing tighter.
19:35: Smug as all hell because I called it a day and uploaded my first edit to Cardiff Animation Nights group chat!Final Compositing!
I know this method might seem a little extreme, but it’s suited me down to the ground. I have quite a ‘flitty’ personality and by the time I’m ready to start on an idea, I’ve had ten more and the desire is no longer there. Rather than fight that part of me, I’ve embrace it. ‘Alright Dani, get bored easily do you? Better get it done quick then!’
You can discover more of Dani’s work by visiting her website or her twitter account.