White Hollow

Animatic

The music and dialogue used in this animatic is for reference and timing purposes only. It will not be used in the final output.

Music:

Someday in the Rain - Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Production Method

The production method for this project originally was to use Adobe Flash for frame by frame animation, then continuing with lining and colouring in Adobe Photoshop and editing and post-production in After Effects. I had planned to use Photoshop as I wanted to create organic lines with a hand-drawn feel and varying widths. However, Flash produces line quality similar to what I had intended to create in Photoshop with added vector quality, therefore I had decided to use it for lining and colouring of the frames. In doing so, the project’s production pipeline has become much more efficient, eliminating possible transfer errors and the time consuming conversion process that can occur from Flash to Photoshop and from Photoshop to After Effects. This decision reduces a lot of production time, and will move the production schedule ahead by approximately one week. This allows me to focus more on the film’s animation and will provide time for any last minute adjustments if needed.

In a dark, fantasy-like realm, a girl dressed in black is seen walking. Her destination or purpose is unknown.

Luna is an early primary school aged girl who finds it difficult to interact with others. She has no confidence in herself and as a result she is always too embarrassed to voice her thoughts. Even though she longs to make friends, she has no courage to talk to others. At the school library, as Luna watches her classmates with envy, she comes across a book and begins to read it.

The girl in black arrives at a large door. She swiftly and gracefully waves her hand, and the door opens.

In class Luna continues to read the book, when a boy next to her breaks the tip of his pencil. As he attempts to fix it, Luna gathers up her courage to lend him a spare pencil. But before she can say anything, the boy gives up and asks for one from the girl in front of him.

Inside of what seems like an old abandoned mansion, the girl in black walks towards a figure on a throne. She stops a few feet away from it and lifts her arm.

Once school has ended, Luna sits to read at her usual spot while waiting to be picked up. A girl in her class seems to be interested in the book she is reading and approaches her. She cheerfully asks Luna if she can see the book and Luna shyly hands it to her. As the girl browses through the book, a boy from class comes along and shows interest. In an attempt to grab the book, he accidentally tears a page out of it. Feeling guilty and embarrassed, the two of them awkwardly hand the book back to a shocked Luna. Both of them then leave while arguing about the torn book.

Block 1. A flash of a scene from a fantasy world, a mysterious girl walking.

Block 2.  Luna is taking a book from the library shelf while looking longingly to a group of chatting kids.

Block 3.  One of the kids noticed her and Luna looks away into the book, embarrassed.

Block 4.  Another flash from the fantasy world, the mysterious girl opening a door.

Block 5.  In class, Luna is reading the book, a boy sitting next to her broke his pencil, Luna goes to lend him her spare one, but he asks another girl before she had the chance to say anything.

Block 6.  The mysterious girl walks towards a figure sitting on a throne, stops and raises her arm.

Block 7.  After school, a girl in Luna’s class approached her and looked at the book she borrowed. Another one of her classmates also tried to look but accidentally tears a page of the book.

Block 8.  After everyone left her alone, Luna opens the book to attempt to fix the torn page. Upon failure she closes the book and holds it tightly. A light shines brightly out of the book.

White Hollow is a story of fantasy vs. reality, a recurring theme in both classic and modern storytelling such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865), and Avatar (James Cameron, 2009). However, the character of this story is unlike Alice who explores Wonderland out of boredom, or Jake Sully who enjoys the freedom and adventure the world of Pandora gives him. Luna is a character who, as oppose to wanting to live a fantasy, longs to have a place in reality.

The style and content of this story is heavily influenced by the Asian culture and Japanese anime. The personality portrayed in Luna is not one that is often used in western narratives. In contrast to the more driven western characters, she is much more withdrawn and quiet, a trait more commonly found in Asian storytelling, for example, the character of Yuki Nagato in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Hinata Hyuga in Naruto. However, despite its commonality, this kind of personality is rarely used as a main character, and that is where White Hollow differs.

Other than that, White Hollow has taken inspiration from Ordet studio’s original video animation, Black Rock Shooter, in its editing style. Black Rock Shooter’s animation cuts back and forth between two realms while keeping the connection between them unexplained until the end of the OVA. This method was successful in keeping audience’s interest in slower-paced sequences while also creating a non-linear way of storytelling. In White Hollow however, this editing style is used simply to establish the existence of the fantasy realm throughout the film.

Relevant Projects

There are a number of artist who have individually produced animated short films. One with the most relevant style and method to this project is Draw with Me by Mike Inel. This film is a beautiful animated short with a simple story and engaging characters. Its production method is similar to White Hollow in using Photoshop to draw each frame and later compositing in After Effects. With one person acting as both a director and animator, the film took approximately 6 months to complete. The drawing style used is a childlike anime style, similar to White Hollow, and although the colouring style is much simpler, it is highly possible to achieve more complex colouring with the extra months of production for this project.

Other short animated films such as Handshake by PatSmith and Cloud by Sam Miller are also produced by individual animators. Both of these films use similar cartoony style to White Hollow and were done within similar timeframe. This is evidence that a short film with the scope of White Hollow is not an impossible task to complete within two semesters of study period.

These short films can be found in the links below: