Wednesday 10 June 2020

Introducing: "Hat Shop"

Meet "Hat Shop", a short film written and directed by Stevie Stedman, one of our MA students studying Storyboarding and Previsualisation at Escape Studios. "Hat Shop" is a short story set in a futuristic robotic world.

Like "Moon Rockz" "Street Ratz" and "Animal Lover", the film was a collaboration between students on our Master's Degree in Storyboarding & Previsualisation and undergraduate students studying the Art of Computer Animation - something we have tried this year for the first time.

Collaborations between departments are not (of course) unusual in industry. Getting our storyboarding students to work together with undergraduate animators is one of the many ways in which we prepare our students for the realities of working in industry.

"Hat Shop" was completed entirely under Lockdown. It is currently being entered into film festivals, and we wish the team every success.

Hat Shop Storyboards
Hat Shop was originally storyboarded by Stevie Stedman, and the boards were pitched to the animators in the form of a storyboard animatic (see below). The storyboard was a necessary first step to selling the project internally - did the animators want to work on it? Taking on a film project is a big commitment of time and effort. As in any studio, a storyboard animatic is the best way to test the strength of the material and see how it plays.




PR5001 Studio Project
The final film was completed as part of Studio Module PR5001, a collaborative module in which students work together on short film projects, simulating as closely as possible the workings of a real animation studio.




Still image from "Hat Shop"
Software
"Hat Shop" was animated in Maya, rendered in Unreal Engine, and edited in Adobe Premiere Pro. It took the team of six student six weeks to complete.

Covid-19
"Hat Shop" was completed entirely from home, under Lockdown. Our students had to learn how to collaborate remotely, animating and rendering their shots, relying entirely on their own home resources.

Hat Shop at the Rookies and at the IMDB
You can find "Hat Shop" at The Rookies here, and at the IMDB here.

Credits
Hat Shop in Film Festivals
Hat Shop has been selected for the Zeitimpuls Film Festival in Austria on June 22-27.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt in 3D Animation, follow this link.  To apply for our storyboarding evening class, visit this page here.  For the next 12 week animation course, click here.

No comments:

Post a Comment