(stirring orchestral music)
- It's hard to really say where it began
because it's been, it's changed so often.
- We kind of had this image of this guy
going to propose and then dropping it
and jumping into the water
and we were like, "Well what could be under there?"
- We all kind of gravitated toward this
underwater, kind of tropical feel
because we wanted to be in a positive place
throughout thesis.
- If it could just make someone happy
or like, laugh for a bit.
Just anywhere around that.
That will just make me really happy.
(upbeat orchestral music)
- Off the bat, people are like,
"What do you want to do?
"What do you want to do?"
- Like me, I wanted something funny.
Thaddeus wanted something that would
maybe bring a tear to your eye.
Liz wanted something colorful and with great characters
and a great story.
Marie wanted something technically challenging.
- So the reason the four of us came together
was because Marie was like our extremely talented rigger
and character TD.
- I was kind of anxious before coming to SVA
because I had never touched my Photoshop,
any computer software at all, so I was kind of anxious,
"Am I actually going to like this?"
Right away, I really fell in love with it.
- More than an idea for the project,
it sort of emerged from people that I wanted to work with
and what they were good at and what I like to do
and we sort of came up with the project
that spoke to us based on some of those things
- It's basically about a man who's trying to propose
to his fiance and he's got the ring and he's ready.
He's ready to propose, but he's so-
His hands are sweaty, he's shaking and he drops the ring
and it goes, whoosh, right through the floorboards,
so he has to dive in after the ring
and he kind of goes on this little journey
underneath the water that changes him
so that he's more ready, actually, to propose to her
by the end.
- The story we were working on was really
character driven and meant to sort of speak to people.
- Well, we have our main character, Steven.
Like, he's just, he just wants to do right
because he's very `composed
but like, you could see a lot in his face.
The girl is Charlotte.
We really wanted this kind of, you know,
something opposite of him, and she was supposed to be
this big ball of energy.
Then we have Squiddy and we really wanted this octopus
that kind of looked like a baby.
- And kind of is like the essence of love
and brings him along this journey and aids him.
- The shark was probably the most difficult.
We redrew him so many times, remodeled him a bunch of times.
- And there's also the shark, which kind of is
the essence of gluttony and anger
and it's kind of the opposite of what he should be feeling
when he's trying to propose.
- When it comes to rigging, the way I like to explain it is
you're basically creating articulations and bones
for a character.
So it's like if someone gave you a puppet,
but it was constantly like this.
You can't fold it in any way.
I can give you the ability to be able
to move that character, give it expressions,
facial expressions.
Once I do the rigging, that's when I can pass it on
to the animators that actually bring life
to the character.
- For the animators, in order to really have a reference,
have a base for the personality and where to go
with a shot.
At first, we would act it out.
- And me and Liz sat in this room and we went over
all of the angles.
It was really funny though, because we were just
bouncing all over the room, trying to figure out
what's gonna be the best way to move the story forward.
- And then we have Thaddeus who is an amazing animator,
also lights and composites.
- I knew from fairly young that I really wanted to do this.
I sort of got a really bad computer,
student version of Maya with the water mark.
I would sort of just like spend hours trying to figure out
how to make squares and stuff,
so I knew that I wanted to find a college that did that
- I am very much a look artist.
I like bringing it all together and very nice.
I literally went from blue, natural lighting
into mysterious lighting, into very dark greens
for the villain, kind of like Disney does it
and then at the very end, we kind of evolved
into this orange-pink sunset,
but if you look at the color script
and you have a constant and active view of it,
you can see how everything's changing
and you can see the beginning, the climax, all these stuff
just because of the colors, so when you incorporate that
into an actual film, it's so much more powerful.
And we knew that our last final piece was like,
we need an amazing story and we need
amazing cinematography and that's where we
hooked on to Nick.
- And just bringing all those things together
makes it happen so much quicker
and gives you such a better result.
- It teaches you so many things,
just how to take criticism,
how to give criticism, how to be very organized,
because the work that you're doing
depends on other people's work.
- The more collaborative you are,
the better you'll do, the more you'll learn,
the happier you'll be.
It's just like this just, it's a cycle of happiness.
- Everybody wants to be able to be a story teller,
I think, ultimately.
- The tools are here for you if you're willing
to take advantage of it.