Lluís Llobera:
Well, I had been thinking about my short film for a long time well before the actual moment of having to choose an idea came  – and I had been keeping a list of concepts that I thought could be fun to work on. Among my sources of inspiration there were books, comics and movies, but mainly observing the things that happened around me in real life. However, when the moment came I found it hard to settle on an idea .. Because picking one meant having to discard the rest.

I tried to analyze what kind of short film I wanted before deciding anything. I knew that the short had to be around 1 minute long, so there wasn’t much time to develop many characters and complex situations in that time frame.

I knew I wanted something fun and original at the same time. I would need to find an idea that audiences could find interesting and appealing. I thought I would like to do some kind of “a-ha!” story, that made people’s mind catch up on the story at the last moment – and realize that things were not like they thought. Something like the classic Hitchcock movies or the Twilight Zone episodes, but comedy-flavoured.

Following on that train of thought, I eventually decided that the background theme was to be how luck can be extremely ironic .. Ahhh, if we could only know !

Also, I knew I wanted to explore changes in status between characters. Having a high-status character become the underdog, and having a low-status character take the upper hand on a conflict is very interesting to see. Therefore, I decided I would have two characters that in the beginning have a specific power-struggle relationship, and in the end that relationship would be different.

Coming up with the final key idea of my short took some time, because I explored a lot of different situations that came to mind, all around the same theme, but with radically different characters and conflicts. Eventually I settled on the story of a charismatic old woman and an eager evil thief.

Even after that, the final idea for my short kept changing as I worked on refining it – within the established premises of the old lady and the not-so-lucky thief. At one point, there were flowerpots falling from a rooftop instead of the piano. And in some other moment there was also a black cat in the story. But, with some work and the advice of people I trusted, I kept polishing the story and making it simpler and cleaner.

Lluís Llobera:
The first would be to keep your story simple. In 60 seconds, you can’t expect to have a highly intricate plot in your short film. Try to find an idea, and work on how to communicate it as clearly as you can.

It is important to ask people for advice. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be other film-makers or animators : your friends, people you hang out with, your family .. If they can’t understand the story or your thumbnails, if something doesn’t read, then it is not working. Listen to their suggestions and write down everything they say, but before making further changes make sure you keep focused in your own main original idea – the key idea.

Sometimes an approach you were thinking on will just not work, and it is better to sacrifice it than to spend a lot of time trying to make it read. Be bold and try different ideas. Listen to all the advice you can get. And don’t hesitate to change stuff if at some point you don’t believe in your approach any more.

Lluís Llobera:
It took me 6 months, from the first story draft to the final animation.

Lluís Llobera:
Planning is KING. I can’t stress this enough !

Because I knew this, I planned everything and anything that came to mind. From how the door would open to what camera lenses I wanted, to the specific beats I wanted in each shot.

I recommend you to think about everything you will need or you can have doubts about : some specific timing, what kind of feel you want for your short film, what camera shots would be more appropriate, how the characters arc throughout the story ..

The point being, you have to know all of this before even turning the computer on. Whatever things you haven’t planned will become big doubts when you’re halfway animating a shot, and by then it will be too late. Sure, you can still improvise and do what feels right in that moment, but I bet that the final outcome will be a lot weaker if you haven’t taken the time to think about everything.

Plan plan plan plan PLAAAAN !!!

Lluís Llobera:
I was very lucky because I had help from some people in the pre-production stage.

Salvador Simó, a good friend and character animator from Spain that can do some of the most beautiful drawings ever, did the super character designs for my characters. I just gave him a few guidelines of what I was thinking of, and he did all the designs and sketches in almost no time. He was really awesome !!

Then I met Anders Ehrenborg, a very cool modeler from Sweden who fell in love with the designs and wanted to help me by doing the model of Miss Clover, the old lady. He worked super swiftly and did the most amazing work ever ! His model was so close to Salvador’s designs that I was speechless every time he showed me his progress. In the end, he even did the blendShapes I needed for the character .. Oh, and he modeled the purse too. He did a great job, he was fast, and he did never let me down. Without him, I could never have finished pre-production in time.

Meanwhile, I did the model for the thief myself. Luckily I could ask Salvador for feedback on the model, and he helped me figure out what changes would be most appropriate so that my model matched his designs.

By the time I had finished modeling the thief, I had a good friend from Norway, Stein Loetveit, doing his blendShapes for me. He did a superb job with them, and thanks to him I could dedicate some time to do the rigs for both characters. His work was great and he didn’t mind my picky corrections. It was really cool to have somebody who I could trust so much !

I have been working in Maya for some time, and I am used to animating my own self-made rigs, which are totally suited to my animation workflow. Therefore, I knew exactly what I wanted for the characters in my short film. I am used to animating rigs that give me complete control over the character, like for example the possibility of squashing and stretching any part individually. That’s what I ended up doing : an open, limitless, light and super-customized rig for each character. All of this was a lot of extra work, but animating my own characters was a great and fun experience and I’m glad I did it !

While all this had been going on, I had also been working in the story. This was my first pitching at AM :

Here’s the final animatic that I ended up with :

After showing it to Bret Parker, my AM mentor, my classmates and a few other people, I decided to change the plot a little bit. I discovered that some things in the animatic were too confusing, and I sacrificed a few of my ideas in order to make it clearer.

I was in need of a very good music score, because the music is 60% of a film. I asked help with it to David Pastor, a Spanish friend who is a super talented piano player. I knew what kind of changes I needed in the music, so I tried to explain while showing him my first rough animatic. And he got what I wanted immediately, and literally improvised the music for my short film while the animatic looped !! All I had to do was get a digital recording device and have him have fun with the music .. It was a very inspiring moment !

Anyway, here’s a more complete animatic with David’s music on top.

After the characters and sets were done, I was able to do the layout for the short film. You can see that I tried to match my camera lenses and angles and general shot composition to what I had in my animatic.

… Aaaand this is it for the pre-production !! At this point three months had already passed, but I was happy that I had most of the potential problems figured out, so I could spend the whole of the next three months only animating !

Lluís Llobera:
The biggest obstacle I came across with was the fact that, after working non-stop on my project for a while, there came a moment where I completely lost focus on what the short had to be like. I still knew what I had wanted to do, but there comes a time in every production when you just can’t see what you are doing with objectivity – or at all! – any more.

Luckily, I had kept a short film journal with a lot of thoughts and details that occurred to me during the pre-production and production stages, and I could go back to it and get the inspiration back. Also, getting feedback from my mentor, my classmates, and the people around me helped tons.

Lluís Llobera:
Animation Mentor was a completely amazing experience. I have learned a LOT about animation in the course, and I know I could never have done a short film like this one without the education I got here. I have to thank Bobby, Carlos and Shawn for creating it, and also to all the mentors and new friends I’ve made here !!

It’s been an amazing and super fun ride, so much so that I wish I could go back to start learning everything all over again from Class 1 ! Thanks guys :-)

HOOONK –

Lluís