ART DIRECTION: BICYCLE LOVE SHORT FILM
A colorful short film about grief.
Elevator Pitch: The world is full of uncertainty. If you stop moving for too long, shadowy monsters come out of hiding and chase after you. They try to steal your happiness and replace it with stress and sadness. The only way to stay sane is to keep moving forward. This is the story of one girl and her bicycle moving forward through the seasons.
Theme: The theme of this film is movement. There is stability in movement
This animated short film will be about how movement helps us to overcome grief and uncertainty brought about by the serious illness of a family member. When reeling from the loss of a loved one, movement, both physical and creative, has helped me to keep a positive outlook through the process of grieving.
Narrative: The story consists of a girl riding her bicycle through four seasons. We begin in summer with flowers blooming as she rides along. Life is good then as she stops to relax and enjoy it, tragedy arrives in the form of the shadowy monsters of uncertainty. She begins to ride again outrunning the monsters and then fall arrives, bringing with it the falling of the leaves against a bright blue sky. She doesn’t dare stop lest the uncertainty monsters catch up to her again but then she calms down and things begin to seem hopeful once again. She stops to relax and the monsters soon return. She barely gets away in time and is able to ride away. Riding into winter it gets cold and snowy. There is not much she can do to keep up speed in the deep snow. Eventually, the monster catch up, and overtake her. We cannot even see the girl anymore. It seems that all is lost as the wave of shadowy grief monsters takes over but eventually we see a bit of hope. The shadowy monsters move on, past the girl, revealing a bright sunny winter day once again. The girl emerges, tired, but still moving along. The sun warms her and she is able to ride faster once again. As she pick up speed we see the arrival of spring and the world begins to seem lighter once again. She has survived this ordeal by steadily moving forward. Now that it is spring, she finally stops to enjoy the world. This time, we don’t see the monsters, but we know that they can return at any time. I may elect to morph the character into a bird or grow her wings so that she can fly into the sky at the end. She may also be joined by a group of ghost riders (or birds) that represent those who have already left this world.
ANIMATION TEST
BACKGROUND DESIGNS
STORYBOARDS
CHARACTER SILHOUETTES
SKETCHBOOK
A lot of projects start out as quick sketches in my sketchbook.
