Was She Really the One?

How it Started

In UGA’s Society for Students in Animation club, we challenged ourselves to create an animation featuring two characters interacting. The animation needed to include sound effects and at least three different shots. I used this project as an excuse to add my own specifications so I could improve some of my animation techniques. In addition to the project challenge I wanted to include lip syncing, solid drawing, and more advanced compositing.

Because I wanted to focus on those animation techniques, I didn’t want to worry about writing and blocking a scene, so I decided to base it off of pre-published material. I thought the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World would be the perfect candidate. First, the style and whimsy alone makes it one of my favorite movies. Second, it’s adapted from a comic series, so I already had an established cartoony reference I could use to animate. With all that in mind, the project became an exercise in animating a scene from the movie in the art style of the comic.

Reference Boards

I wanted Was She Really the One? to be a faithful recreation of the scene from the movie in the style of the comic. Every little detail from my animation I wanted to be informed by the comics. For example, I changed Stacey’s wardrobe from how it was the movie to reflect what she wore in the comics in the same moment of the story.

The Animation Process

This project was going to be 2D frame-by-frame limited animation just like my previous work with the Atlanta Spider-Man. If I wanted to make the drawings more solid and consistent, I needed to eliminate room for my technical error. If something didn’t have to move, it wouldn’t. I needed to be economical with my animation since it was a minute long and I didn’t have lots of time and energy to put into it. To strategize, I decided on focusing on this sequence from the movie. A dialogue scene where complicated action was kept to a minimum, and where the same angle was used multiple times. It was helpful because I could just copy/ paste compositions for some shots.

Reflections

It always amazes me how iterative animation is. Sure, “Was She Really the One?” is far from my first rodeo, but I believe it is the most in-depth I’ve gone with the 2D animation process. I wanted to have a methodical approach, so I created a storyboard of the whole scene, then animatic, then rough animation before clean up, color and compositing. Needless to say, I had the whole sequence memorized dozens of times over.

I’m glad that this project gave me the opportunity to do a deep dive in work I was a fan of, looking at its multiple aspects and presentations.