Cupid in Training
Overview
About a year in the making, Cupid in Training was a film created by the Animation Production Studio class of 2022, which I had the honor of directing. Our teacher/Executive Producer Ron Fleischer provided much of the structure we needed to go through the animation pipeline for real. Created amidst the terror of Covid, the aim of this film was to create a bit of fun in recasting the cherub Cupid as a clumsy yet diligent angel with a few tricks up his sleeve in his pursuit of successfully carrying out his first mission.
A Tie Vote
The idea, created by our producer, survived the gauntlet of other ideas presented despite a rival pitch that ended up splitting our class of 24 in two. At a tie vote for each, we ended up making concept art for both ideas. Ever since we ended up going with Cupid in Training, our class was already off to a bumpy start as the other half of the class that were assimilated into our concept were probably unhappy that their idea and initial development fell to the wayside. As Director, I was openly sensitive to this state of affairs which I believe made our team more united in the long run.
Leadership
Next we elected our leadership for the film, that being our producer, layout lead, art director, and a few lead animators. I was elected as director after giving a speech about my experiences in scouting and how it applied to the role, not fully knowing what I was getting myself into.
I was hoping at the outset to take a more democratic approach to the creation of this film since we had the advantage of meeting multiple times a week in person, however as the production went on I found myself filling in the gaps and wearing multiple hats as everyone was stressing over their shots or other classes. Based on our initial visdev from the brainstorming phase, I drafted the script myself with the hopes there would be some critique (since I wasn’t too familiar with how they’re supposed to be written outside of what I was told) but we ended up changing the story far more when it came to storyboarding.
Some early storyboards I made
Tools Used
Throughout the Traditional Animation path at Columbia, we learned how to use Toon Boom software and used it to make pretty much the entirety of this film, with the exception of Premier for the final cut (which I used for the first time creating the animatic). Files were managed in Microsoft office (never again).
Teams Formation
After splitting up the script into general timing, the storyboarders chose scenes based on how much time we estimated we could take and got to work while another section of the class started up a layouts team. Around this time we were also doing animation tests like the ones I did below which were far too cleaned up for tests or even roughs, I learned. Most ended up going straight to cleanup…
Animation Tests/Some Rough Animation I made
Rough Animation
Once we had the whole script boarded out and adjusted as per several phases of feedback (feedback I wrote directly into each boarded sequence), the animatic editor (me) timed everything out in Premier for the next stage, rough animation. At the same time, the layouts team continued drawing backgrounds based on the finished boards, and when rough versions were approved, went on to color them—same with the animation, in cleanup and paint. The reel went through something like 17 different versions and grew to almost twice the length over the course of revisions.
Cross-Discipline Collaboration
I also had to find other students in the sound department to do SFX and the score, the development of which ran parallel to the rest of the production. Since we didn’t have the time to look for voice actors, we utilized our own talent within the team and recorded in a proper studio.
A couple animatics I made
Version 1
Version 11 (Audio)
Communication
This production, as with any I would imagine, did not go without its share of problems. There were many, but from a director’s standpoint two major points of friction arose with the communication hierarchy, and the colors we were going to use in the film—the first exposed by the latter. The breakdown in communication with the art director regarding color put far too much pressure on the layout team lead. In addition, some layout people felt that they were doing more work than reasonable; others were frustrated by the animation team deviating from the storyboards; and finally, several layout people felt they were being ignored by other teams (partially because the class was physically split between rooms to give both teams a space to work). To make matters worse, the story creator tried to force a decision on colors, which pleased no one.
Most of this was brought to my attention by someone on the layout team who was doing some of this extra work, and I can’t be more thankful for her courage in doing so. Once I had addressed her concerns one by one, the next day the problem was almost entirely solved. This interaction taught me that being frank about problems like this and how they are affecting production can help give rise to meaningful change.
Color was not my strong suite, so I felt it wouldn’t have been right for me to simply make a decision and move on as most people wanted—I would be no better than a dictator. After gathering those who had the biggest opinions on the matter to talk about it, after much deliberation we were able to come to a consensus for the colors to be used in the final film for each major scene, and from what I could tell most on the team were satisfied with what we came up with.
Some clean up animation I did
Continuity
Apart from what was going on socially, animation-wise there was much to be done that some of the animators just weren’t cut out to do. I elected early on to keep the line style of the characters as simple as possible to make it easier for animators to replicate, but even so, a tragic bulk of the work had to be assigned to the animation leads or myself to put them back on model. This would be a common point of feedback I would put on work every week in our spreadsheet, a spreadsheet I had to manage myself more and more, effectively becoming another producer. Despite many challenges, I’m proud of the quality in the work I personally did and can already see where I need improvement.
Some cleanup, paint and effects I did
Following Protocols
Something that always seemed to be an issue throughout the production was how people were naming and uploading their files to Office, even though we had a pretty clear guide of how it was supposed to be done. Seeing as my experience so far on the “Fowl Heist” production has shown this problem persisting, it seems like it should always be something I should first ask about before uploading my work, because now I know it’s a problem on both ends. Here’s what our production spreadsheet ended up looking like:
Layouts tab
Animation tab
Artwork by Sarah Shaw
Once everything was into the painting stage, things started to get much easier both in work and management, and even though there was still a lot of stuff to wrap up until the very last day before the screening we still found time to come up with some shirt designs.
Conclusion
All in all, in evaluating my performance as a director for this film I think I did pretty okay considering some of the circumstances, but I was certainly nowhere near perfect. A lot of struggle could have been avoided had I had more of a vision for how the film should look early on and communicating that effectively, rather than unwittingly throwing my colleagues into the deep end. I learned that it’s ok to be comfortable exploring the ambiguity of ideas so long as you ensure as a leader that everyone stays on track and on the same page. Otherwise, a seemingly small change too late into the production cycle can send a ripple of problems throughout the entire pipeline.
That’s about all. After graduation, I submitted the film to a the Golden Short Film and Milan Gold Awards film festivals with my own money where they earned some recognition.
I directly had a hand in these roles for most of the project: Director, Scriptwriter, Storyboarder, Animatic Editor, Rough and Cleanup Animator, Ink and Painter, Animation Checker, Production Assistant and fire extinguisher (problem solver). It’s no Miyazaki film, but I hope members of our APS class can look back and be proud of what they contributed.
The Final Film