L'appel du vide

L'appel du vide was part of my graduation project at Anglia Ruskin University, 2022.

I create all of the visuals, animation, colouring, backgrounds, editing and compositing. The music was produced by Arlych via Fiverr.

My final film follows the structure of Greek tragedies, inspired by tales like Orpheus and Eurydice; along with classical pieces such as Giselle. This project originated from a personal loss I had experienced.

The main character is driven to the extremes to try and save her wife; going into the unknown and willing to give up anything.

Process

Original 66 boards, the original version of the story was more fleshed out and had better timing. Due to the time contrains and single animator, this was cut to 37 boards.

I struggled a bit when working on this film, due to the fact that I was working on my own, and that we only had around 5 months for our production time. My initial pass of my storyboard had 66 boards; once I had timed it the animatic lasted 3 minutes. With the deadline I had, it would not be possible to create a good animation at that time frame; therefore, I had to cut content. In the final cut, only 37 boards were used.

I wrote a short article based on my experience creating this animation, for EVCOM's "Film: Next Gen Articles", [Starting Your Animated Project].

L'appel du vide was actually shortlisted for EVCOM's 2022 FOCUS Award!

Character Design

Character designs

Mermaid design based on the Mauritian contestant for "Miss Grand International 2021"

Colour Keys

The images below are my colour keys. I took the main boards (from the previous images) and overlayed them with colour to help design the overall look and feel of the film.

Inspiration

The setting is based off Mauritius, an African island based in the Indian Ocean - the country where my family originates from.

As previously mention, the mermaid is based on the Mauritian contestant for Miss Grand International 2021.

Here are some visual references.

When the main character speaks to the mermaid, I used sign language to communicate what she wanted from her, rather than using speech. I had chosen to depict the conversation this way because of another animated media, which also features mermaids.

As a child obsessed with mermaids, one of the shows I would watch was ‘The Little Mermaid’ TV series. The most memorable episode, for me, was ‘Wish upon a Starfish’ which introduced the character, Gabriella.

Gabriella was a deaf/mute mermaid who joined Ariel on a journey to find a mystical starfish who could grant wishes, as she wished to have a voice so she could sing. Being mute itself is a feature so integral to the story of the Little Mermaid, another tale that has a bittersweet ending, so it felt right to use sign language in place of spoken language.