Short and Suite Series
Note: the audio isn’t available for episode 1 due to copyright.
This project presents moments and anecdotes from Southwest Airlines’ history. This footage appears on Southwest’s corporate campus in an area called the Emeritus Suite, hence the title. Because these stories had little in the way of archival imagery, I relied on a variety of tools and techniques to present these recordings in a visually appealing way.
For episode one, the first step was the creation of storyboards. They provide a concrete image of my thinking and design process that really helps clients visualize what will happen on screen. I also provided style frames to help stakeholders approve a final look of the animation. Below is a comparison of storyboards to the final animation.
Blender proved to be invaluable in the intermediate steps. I used traditional polygonal modeling to create 3d models of the race cars and some of the other hard surface assets. I sculpted high-polygon models of the drivers and flag waver. I used simulations to create the cloth and smoke.
The title sequence was animated in Cinema4d. It’s mograph tools provide a lot in the way of squash and stretch that allowed me to inject character into the title card.
I directed actors in the performance of lip syncing to live action footage. It was shot on iPhone and not in the preferred studio setting due to COVID restrictions. Because this footage wouldn’t appear directly on screen, this turned out to work quite well, allowing the actors to handle multiple retakes on a flexible time table.
Once the rendered images and videos, edited, and approved, I was able to move on to the next step. I hand drew key frames in Procreate using the cut video as direct reference. After the hand illustration of hundreds of keyframes, I could use an AI-assisted tool to apply the inbetweens to the rest of the animation.
The end result is the production of a final animation that has a hand created look with the flexibility and speed of a 3d animation.
After the successful reception of the first episode, I was approved to move to the second episode.
The audio of the second episode is from a video interview, but no other assets were available for this creation of this one. I used the same workflow here, with the addition of some traditional hand-drawn animation.