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Animation Mentor:
How did you come up with the concept for your short film?
Chris Buckley:
A friend and I were talking over dinner, before I enrolled in Animation Mentor, about wanting to do a short film. I said to him that it can’t be that hard to come up with an idea. He said prove it, so I just started talking and making up this ridiculous story about a bear that has to go pee. It was one of those times that inspiration hit – and I ran with it.
Animation Mentor:
What important lessons did you learn from making your short film?
Chris Buckley:
Don’t bite off more than you can chew! I have 22 shots in my short which is WAY too many. Looking back, I would have streamlined the short or done something different, so that I could have spent even more time on the acting and animation. Not surprisingly, a few of my mentors told me this along the way. At the time I was a bit too inspired to listen!
Animation Mentor:
How long did it take to complete your film?
Chris Buckley:
If feels like about 10 years…in all honesty, it’s tough to say as I was tinkering with the story before Animation Mentor and had rough storyboards in my first term there. All in all, it has been a work in progress for just under a year.
Animation Mentor:
How much planning was put into your short film? Did planning help make the process easier?
YES! I planned this thing inside and out. I had gone over it in my head so many times I could pitch it to you in my sleep. I think planning is the most important stage of the process. Without a good foundation your house will fall apart. It also makes it easier when you’re starting to burn out if you have everything laid out so that you can follow your plan and not be stumped when 3 a.m. rolls around.
Animation Mentor:
Do you mind sharing some of the pre-production work with us with a little explanation of what we're looking at.
Chris Buckley:
First up, I storyboarded the whole thing so that I could get my thoughts on paper to see if it worked visually. I then scanned it in and timed it out in iMovie, which is super easy and quick to use.
Next, because I wanted to see it in motion and play around with cutting a little more, I met up with a friend while visiting San Francisco and we shot the whole thing. Just the two of us -- and my Uglydoll – in a pit near the Golden Gate Bridge.
From there, I re-storyboarded it again, to streamline the whole thing.
Finally, I got into layout where everything changes (again!) due to limitations you get when you’re in 3D. Some of the shots were re-worked because of that.
Animation Mentor:
What obstacles, if any, did you experience during the creation of your short film? How did you work your way around them?
Chris Buckley:
Like I mentioned previously, it had way too many shots. Dealing with that was a big obstacle. To get through that I looked at each shot to figure out what was important and what wasn’t; I really focused on that. The other obstacle was when I showed it to people! I’d receive a barrage of notes that would often conflict with each other, and hugely affect the story. Although I had asked for them, I found hearing all of these amazing ideas tough as I didn’t have time to incorporate most of them. But some of them were gems and I couldn’t help but throw them in there! That said, I was always aware of the main story and didn’t compromise that with the new ideas. Also, I had a few people who felt uneasy about a bear seemingly attacking a baby….
Animation Mentor:
Tell how your Animation Mentor experience helped you in creating your short film.
Chris Buckley:
I learned SO much about storytelling within a shot, and how important it is to have an underlying meaning to everything. The acting in my short is pretty big and broad, but there’s definitely some subtext for the actors besides just a bear having to go pee. If you watch closely you can see that the bear misses his family in the wild and yearns one day to be free to run in the great Canadian wilderness and maybe open a smoked salmon stand. It’s quite subtle, but it’s in there.
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