Haokun Liang:
When I was in class 5 I really wanted to create something moody, spiritual or creepy, and I also wanted to keep things very simple to let me mainly focus on the character animation. I had the inspiration when I was playing with my camera; the idea just suddenly popped out of my mind. I found out I could use the Animation Mentor rig for the statue, so I only needed to model the camera and the tripod. I also decided to use a dark background as I felt that it helped to develop the mood and to keep the setting simple.

Haokun Liang:
I learned that planning is the most important process for the short film, because eventually I found out I didn't plan enough. My layout was about 60 seconds; I thought it was good enough to tell the story, but the actual length of the finished film was over 90 seconds. I kept adding more frames when I was animating, because 60 seconds was not long enough to build up the mood and show the acting. So I think it's very important to plan well, watch the animatic and the layout over and over again, and make sure that's the way you want it before you start to animate.

Haokun Liang:
It took me 3 months to plan, create the animatic and the layout in class 5, and 3 months for animating in class 6. But I spent about another 3 months polishing and changing some acting choices that I thought could make my film better (so planning is very important— if I had planned well enough, it would have saved me a lot of time).

Haokun Liang:
Good planning definitely helps make the process a lot easier. This was my first short film and I planned a lot. I wrote down the concept of my film, drew the animatic, and did the layout in Maya, but I don’t think I planned enough, because the actual animation was much longer than what I had expected. If I make another short film in the future, I will spend a lot more time on planning everything and putting as much information as possible into the animatic. I will especially plan carefully for the acting choice and the length of the film, and make sure the acting choice works for the character's personality and the style of my film.

Haokun Liang:
Animatic: This is the original concept of my short film. When I was done with this animatic, I felt that it was not spiritual enough, so I asked my class 5 mentor Ricardo Curtis how I could make it more spiritual. He said that the ghost was too playful and that was why it didn't feel spiritual.

The ghost in the animatic is smaller than the ghost in the animation, because I felt that it was creepier if the ghost was bigger than the camera man. Just try to imagine, there is a ghost appearing next to you and his head is twice the size of yours. Isn’t that very creepy?

Layout 1: This is my layout. I changed the acting choice for the ghost to make the film more spiritual.

Layout 2: Another acting choice for the camera man. I added a shot with him drawing a cross before he decided to go to look at the statue. My mentor Ricardo said that it worked smoother without this shot, so I just went with layout 1.

Thumbnails: Some thumbnails I did for the ghost.

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Blocking pass: I started adding more frames when I was blocking. It was longer than my layout, and my final pass was even longer. Some acting choices were also changed in my final pass. I think if I had planned more, it would’ve made the process a lot easier.

Jaw: The original rig for the camera man had a very big jaw. It made me feel that he was a little too confident when comparing his personality in the film, so I pushed his jaw back a little bit to make him look a little more diffident.

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Haokun Liang:
Working on the acting for the characters was the biggest challenge for me. It was difficult to maintain the mood of the film while creating contrast between the two characters. My class 5 mentor Ricardo Curtis said that the ghost couldn't be too playful, or the film wouldn't feel spiritual. It was also difficult to give personality to the characters – to let the audience feel that the characters were not only moving but also thinking. My class 6 mentor Bret Parker gave a lot of detailed feedback on the acting and posing as well as timing & spacing. My classmates were also very supportive.

My computer was very old and slow and it was ok when animating in proxy mode, but it became really slow when I turned on the higher resolution mode to work on the facial animation.

Haokun Liang:
I hadn't touched any animation before I started Animation Mentor, and now I have a short film done! The education at Animation Mentor was awesome. The thing that I like the most about Animation Mentor is that it really focuses on the acting for animation. I learned not only from my mentor critiques but also from other students by watching their works and their mentor critiques.