Essence Cartoon Internship (2021)
During the summer of 2021, I accepted an internship at Essence Cartoon. Our group of five interns created a short animation project created with the permission of the bobblejot, the creators of a popular Instagram comic series Tori and Samuel with the oversight of Malachi Staples. We primarily used ToonBoom Harmony and Storyboard Pro.
Process
Script
Each intern was given a small section of the original comic panels to expand upon. They would bring this small slice from beginning to end of production. Afterwards, each slice was to be put together into a full animation.
The first step was writing a script. I had to describe and expand upon the given panels to fit an animation. I had never written a script before. However, Malachi gave us various examples of great scripts and tips about formatting and content for screenwriting.
We went through several revisions of our scripts to check for clarity and consistency.
Design/Development
Next, interns researched the art style of the characters Sam (cat) and Tori (dog) from the original creators. After completing research, we each created turnaround sheets for them.
During this time, we divided tasks among the production pipeline. I completed a background that was used as a reference for the other backgrounds in the short. From this background, I also created a color and line style guide. Another intern developed a floorplan of the space that the characters were moving around in.
Casting Voice Over
Malachi reached out to some voice acting talent to voice lines from the script. As a group, we reviewed the voice lines and casted the most appropriate lines according to tone and delivery. These lines were then included in the animatics and final short.
Storyboards and Animatic
I was in charge of making the storyboards and animatic for the last scene of the short. In this scene, Sam climbs into a hammock, picks up a cup of coffee, and relaxes. Storyboarding and animatic were completed using StoryboardPro. Each went through a few iterations of review and revision before moving onwards.
Rough and Tie-down Animation
Once all animatics were reviewed and approved, some interns were in charge of creating the rough and then tie-down animation. Rough animation was completed using ToonBoom Harmony and reviewed through Syncsketch.
I was not part of the rough animation team, but I assisted Malachi with handling daily check ins, reviewing work, and updating our shot list as takes were completed. We used Google Sheets to make the shot list and Google Drive to organize our assets.
