What is the film about?

Pen to paper, a sweet old woman can’t find the right words. But when she lends her pen to a hopeless young chap, it’s more than just words that elude her.

What influenced it?

The spark of an idea came about when someone asked to borrow my pen and I begrudgingly gave it to them. I found that I wanted to explore a situation where a character goes on a mad chase to get their favourite pen back. I discussed the idea with my team and that idea grew with other influences – in particular I was influenced by the situation my grandma was in at the time. And so the pen came to represent much more.

A little background information...

Time runs out for us all but it is the memories we create, the people we love and the legacy that we leave behind that matters.

As the Director, I wanted to tell a story inspired by my grandmother who was suffering from vascular dementia at the time and unfortunately passed during the production of the film. I wanted to show a sweet story about a woman’s life, revisiting memories of her wedding day whilst also wanting to depict the frustration, fear, confusion and the sorrow of struggling with such an illness from the perspectives of both the person inflicted and their loved one(s).

How was the film made?

We went through several iterations of the script and storyboard with the core story team comprised of screenwriter Nathan Hardisty, Liam Hall and myself along with input from our producer Andrew St Maur and the team. Guidance for cinematography was also provided by Twan Peeters before the boards were compiled into an animatic by editor Jan Schroeder.

It was important that writing continued throughout the process to ensure the pacing and tone were well balanced. The animatic was continuously reviewed throughout the entire production process, enabling us to tweak and improve upon all elements, as the film began to take form. As well as using the professional voice over as a guide for animation, video reference was also used to act out scenes as it was crucial for these character to feel as real as possible, to carry home our message.

From the animatic we progressed onto animation, a process which consisted of rough animation, clean up, colour and final composite. Using digital animation and more tactile elements such as ink and paper, it was important to get the final look of the animation right in order to create an authentic feel within the restrictions of our production.

The background art was produced alongside the animation using British seaside towns as reference as we wanted the setting to feel like somewhere familiar without specifically representing any one place. Due to the high level of detail and the intense turnaround needed during production, much of the animation had to be completed using 3D layout models and rough guides as reference. To ensure unity between backgrounds and characters, several ‘look tests’ were carried out.

In addition to animation and background production, the inky visual effects were achieved by filming droplets and spills of various inks on lots of different materials. We spent time trying combinations of several inks and liquids such as water, milk, oil on materials like papers, card, tissue, wet wipes and napkins. These experiments were filmed at 120 frames per second to allow for flexibility in slowing or speeding up the movement as desired, when it came to integrating them into the film.

All of the visual elements were then composited together and refined in the edit and grade. Overall the visual production process took approximately 12 months.