Pre-production is the early but vital stage of creating an animated short. Concept artists create art that visualizes the world that the story takes place in and character artists design the characters that inhabit it, while story artists create storyboards that get to the heart of the story and bring the director’s vision to life. The art that concept and character artists make serves as a blueprint for modelers and texture artists who will create these sets and characters as 3D assets that can be used by the rigging and animation departments. Meanwhile, story artists focus on creating sequential drawings that demonstrate the events of the story that serve as a guide for the animation and lighting departments to bring the short to its completion. For this short, pre-production work had begun before the COVID lockdown but was able to continue during lockdown thanks to video calls on Discord and the artists’ art software at home.

-Paulina Gil - Storyboard Artist 

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In Look Development, artists collaborate with the director to conceptualize the wide array of ideas- such as mood and theme as well as interesting effects- the director has in mind into works of art that other departments- like Lighting and FX- can reference. This summer, for Strings, the Look Development team worked closely with the Director to create a color script which creates the general color story throughout the short. This color story is intentional all around and helps the artists and director visualize whether or not their vision will give the correct impression on the audience. Later, the Look Development team creates color keys that explore different lighting techniques and FX that may need to be used. Later, the Lighting and FX teams can use these to reference how their work will need to look.

-Navya Adipudi- Look Development and Lighting Lead

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