the making of the animated video
It all starts with the story
Once I decided that I wanted to create an animation video for “Sometimes,” I started to conceive different ideas for a storyline. I then drew a quick illustration of the main character, an outside scene to set the mood, and the character's bedroom so that I could further define the "feel" of the piece.
Once I conceptually knew what I wanted to say with the video, I reached out to Scott Baucan, my very talented animator/artist friend, to see if he had an interest in collaborating to make this come to life. Being that this was my first real dive into exploring animation, I knew I needed some assistance.
A little about Scott:
Scott Baucan is a freelance comic artist who actively participates in the East Coast comic con and horror con circuit. Two years ago, he attained certification in Toon Boom, and presently, he leverages his expertise in this software for PC games and music videos. Scott has a diverse background in independent filmmaking, encompassing screenplay writing, prop creation, and costume design. Abstract painting is his favorite form of art, and he sells his works in shows and galleries. In the interim between projects, Scott has been diligently crafting his own webtoons comic. Follow Scott on WebToons to keep up with his current works. I was lucky enough to meet Scott while we were both working our tails off in a restaurant in Morgantown, West Virginia. My time there was short, so I consider this meeting a real win. Follow Scott on Webtoons.
storyboarding and collaborating:
Scott and I talked for hours about my vision for the video. We started sending story-board ideas back and forth and really started to hone in on the storyline.
We both decided that we wanted use a cut-out style of animation - I really like the layered look that allows for both a certain level of simplicity and also lends well to adding low-level artistic detail (for instance, the clouds).
Scott immediately got to work on the animation piece, where he used a vector-based program called Toon Boom Harmony. Check out a behind the scenes peek of that below.
“To save time, I focused more on how the scenes would cut together. I kept the movement as simple as possible. I really relied on the characters' eyes to tell most of the mood and story.” - Scott
Editing and coloration:
The last step to everything is editing (frustrating) and coloration (super fun). I joke about the editing, but it's definitely less fun for me than the coloration piece. Getting the fireflies to pop in the way that we had envisioned was my goal and using coloration to set the story's time of day was also something that I focused on.
Here is a clip of the original animation, pre-coloration.
Here is a screen shot of the same scene with coloration and other edits.
Now comes the fun:
The best part about taking the time to make something like this is putting it out into the world and sharing the idea with you all. We'd absolutely love to hear your thoughts on "Sometimes" and/or if you liked this behind the scenes look at it. If you're a creative and you're working on project and feel like you'd like to work with Scott or myself, we both do freelance work on the regular, and we'd love to hear more about your project. Here's how you can get in touch/follow:
To see more of my work, follow me on the socials or check out my website (below). It's been really cool to give you a tiny behind the scenes look at this process. Thanks for being a Hello June fan and a supporter of the arts all around!
Til next time!
Sarah