“Beyond the Valley” Short Film
“Beyond the Valley” was one of two short film projects that I created during my time in the Classical Animation program at Vancouver Film School from 2018-2019. This film was an enormous undertaking; at the start of my 12 month program I struggled to animate a bouncing ball, and by the end of the program I had created a traditionally animated film that was nearly three minutes long. The entire film was hand-drawn using pencil and paper; I ended up using about 2000 sheets of paper to create the clean version of the film.
I tried to keep the story very simple; a little scarecrow character decides to break free from his post to try and discover new places beyond the valley where he’s spent his entire life. As my school year continued and the story developed, I found that the story had become a reflection of my own experiences of that year. In the end the story became a metaphor for the pursuit of reaching your dreams and the importance of accepting help from others in order to achieve them.
I am very proud of this film. I am often nervous to look back on older work because I know that the flaws will be what stands out to me the most. With this film however, I only see the passion I poured into the project and I am still impressed by some of the scenes I was able to animate with so little experience.
To watch the film, please click the video below :) I hope you enjoy it!
Watch “Beyond the Valley” Below
THE MAKING OF “BEYOND THE VALLEY”
I’ve included some of the process work for the film below, including what the animation looked like as the original pencil work. The pencil drawings were scanned and brought into Toon Boom Harmony where they were digitally coloured. The backgrounds were all digitally painted in Photoshop.
Original Prop Designs and character concept sketches:
These images are from the very early days of the film where I had potential props for the scarecrow to encounter during his trek through the field, as well as his early designs. After drawing him several times, I decided to remove a lot of the detail from his outfit to make animation a bit easier. I also chose to make his eyes much larger so that I could create stronger expressions.
ORIGINAL PENCIL ANIMATION:
Below you can see what the scanned line tests looked like before they were adjusted and coloured in Toon Boom Harmony. You can also see very rough layouts that were later translated into digitally painted backgrounds on Photoshop.
Shot 2. Thought it was interesting to include a shot where multiple characters were interacting.
Shot 6. This is my favourite shot in the entire film, especially in its original line test form. I think it's so fun to see my scarecrow run across one sheet of paper to the next.
Shot 10. This shot looks very bizarre in this format, so I thought it would be fun to include. This is what the fireworks look like as pencil drawings, before they are coloured and comped in Toon Boom Harmony.
BACKGROUND ART:
Below are a few of the backgrounds used in the film. Prior to this project, I had only ever painted traditionally, so learning to digitally paint was a huge learning curve. We only had a couple of classes to learn some basics, so I mostly learned how to digitally paint in my free time. I think these backgrounds turned out alright for my first time, so thought I would include them here.
