Log
Project SONHOS
Time in production 17 weeks 2 days
Status Summer break
The Idea
SONHOS is directed and produced by me - Hannah Ruth - so most of the pre-proction is a solo adventure, until other party members join me later on the road. The idea for this project appeared in the boredom of a class about sustainable design. In itself this is an interesting subject, very relevant, but my obsessions lie in making movies and drawings. So amidst all the talk of our tropical flora and fauna I thought, the cool version of all this would be tropical punk. And that idea stuck.
During the next classes I fantasized about what a tropical punk aesthetic means, which elements it could involve, and somehow I made a connection with the Mad Max franchise, which was the punk I associated most directly with my current environment (not a desert - just somewhat jumbled together scraps). The semester ended, the idea stuck, and the new semester came with a new challenge: the thesis project. I knew I wanted to make an animation, I was excited about tropical punk, and here we are.
The premise: In a post-apocalyptic world Rio de Janeiro is in pieces, and only a few survivors remain. Our protagonist, who delivers mate to the nearby communities, has to get away from a group of crazy Guaraná-fanatics in an intense car chase through the city.
The Set-up
The very first thing I did was create a Notion page to organize deadlines, material and to-do items. I like Notion, because a to-do item can be an own page with detailed information in it and date attached to it, which is connected to a calendar view.
The basic structure of the page is as follows:
• Main deadline dates
• Important links (Miro board, survey, project diary, google drive, script, etc.)
• References
• A kanban board with every task
• A view of the task of the week
• A calendar view of the tasks
• (Links to turned-in presentations, relevant to students only)
The software I am using for all my process is Clip Studio Paint Ex, on the iPad Pro. I chose the iPad, because in my current routine I shift between places quite frequently and I wanted to be able to keep working in all of them, with ease.
If there is interest in more details about the Notion set-up, we could make a YouTube video based on it.
Research
Not every animation involves research, my previous one didn’t. But this one did. Why? My aim is to create an aesthetic that merges a mainstream “punk” aesthetic with cultural elements from Rio de Janeiro specifically. That means that I need to know what exactly are relevant cultural elements from Rio de Janeiro. This is a diverse and somehow divided city, so relying on my social environment only would be inaccurate.
I created a survey that allowed for qualitative answers (meaning, not multiple choice) with questions about the participants perspective on Rio. What are iconic places, clothes, cars and emotional associations they have with the city. Those answers, even though still limited, gave me a rough idea which places to show in the short, what type of clothing to research, which vehicles to reference and what general mood to present.
One thing I told myself from this point on is to keep those people in mind - this short is for them. It’s for the carioca* teens who never saw Matte Leão or Chinelos or the ‘Tiozinho do Bar’ on screen. Without excluding everyone else, of course, after all the whole point is to reference mainstream media in this specific context.
Visual Research
In order to make character and vehicle and environment designs, there was a long phase of visual research. For the characters, I looked up many different fashion brands from Rio and Brazil, some of the main ones being SS Jheni, Cosmo Rio, Pormenor.Co, PINA and outfits from singer Anitta. For the vehicle designs, aside from looking at specific cars in the city, I looked up designs from the Mad Max movies and many references from Burning Man festival. For the environments, aside from general post-apocalyptic images on Pinterest, I took pictures from most of the featured locations, using Google Earth to complement.
*carioca is a term for people who live in Rio de Janeiro
Script writing
Contrary to most of my other projects, this one did not start with the story in mind. As the point of the project is to create an aesthetic, a visual genre, the story remained vague for a long time. The only thing I knew was that it would probably be a chase sequence, to directly reference the Mad Max vibe.
For a complex story an outline might be useful, but since this is for a short I just started writing the script directly, starting with the chase sequence. However, the action description was still kept vague, since I wanted to explore specific things happening during the chase in the storyboard. That approach made more sense, because it is hard to imagine the rhythm of an action sequence without visuals. The detailed parts of the script are the scenes following the chase, when the protagonist get’s away from the antagonists and interacts with other characters.
Overall the point of the story is to be simple, since the aim of this project is the aesthetic experience. I have a theory that if the audience has to process a lot around the worldbuilding and visuals, it is better to have a simple story, and vice-versa. But simple story does not mean superficial, I believe a big appeal from the narrative in my short comes from a simple word-play that brings a second dimension to it.
Up next
Next issue I will detail the concept art process! Finally some drawing. We talk about clothes, Alberto Mielgo and missing a deadline.