BUG ADVERTISEMENT
An advert encouraging people to throw out their rubbish in Picturehouse theatres.
[COMPLETED JUNE 2024]
THE BRIEF
This project was a client brief given to me in my second year of university. The brief asked that I create a 30 second animated advert promoting recycling within PictureHouse cinemas.
INITIAL CONCEPTS
My first response was a quick scenario following Fern, a butterfly and Beatrice, a bee handling rubbish on Beatrix's farm.
DESIGNING FERN
I wanted Fern to be the much gentler of the two of them, with the idea that her profession was performing - more specifically ballet dancing.
She is meant to be confident, optimistic and kind - a lot more emotional than Beatrix. She loves Bea, but she worries about her overworking herself.
Fern's design was the trickier of the two, as I couldn't figure out what clothes to give her and how her expressions would work with only dots for eyes. I settled on a jumpsuit (I removed the lined details later on for ease of animating, unfortunately) and found a way to make her wings simple enough to animate, but give enough detail to show what species she is (Blue Morpho).
DESIGNING BEATRIX
Beatrix was designed to be a stubborn, hardworking farmer. She sees something out of place? She won't rest until it's done. Consequently, this means she forgets to take a break and burns out very quickly.
While she isn't as expressive, she certainly loves and appreciates Fern, and does feel ashamed to ask for support on her own when a task becomes too much for herself.
Beatrix's design was a lot more straight forward: Her eyes were big and easier to work with, and her furry neck allowed for extra room to work with. She was a farmer, and nothing too fancy, so I didn't need to worry about extra details or different styles. However, when drawing her turnaround, I did realise how difficult it would be to animate two sets of arms and decided to scrap her lower arms.
ANIMATING
Thus began actually forming a plot and a storyboard:
The plot I settled on followed Fern trying to encourage Beatrix to take a break, but Bea is overwhelmed by the rubbish that keeps being blown into her farm. To combat this, Fern builds a small bin to encourage people to dispose of their litter rather than leave it lying about.