Journey

Watch 'Journey' here:

Our Film Poster

About The Story

Story Synopsis

An old man has been anticipating a trip to the moon his entire life. One day, he is finally able to ride the train to the moon. On his way there, he is transported into a moon dreamland of his own imagination. Upon arriving at the actual moon, his dreams were crushed as the reality of the moon was not what he expected.

What Inspired This Story?

In this film, we are able to see the Old Man being hopeful and excited as he looks forward to his dreams. Showing how he pictures the scenario to be like through his scrapbook and as we get to dive into his imagination world as well. But then, when he arrived, he was met with something that was nothing like what he expected. It made him really sad and disappointed but in the end, he got closure as he saw the breathtaking scenery of the Earth, making him realize that the journey itself was beautiful.

Often times, we are like this as well. We are too fixated on our goals that we neglect what we go through along the way, unable to see and be grateful for the process. When in reality, what actually makes us grow and reach the goal is the process itself. So we hope that this film can serve as a beautiful reminder to the people out there and especially for artists, who always strive to achieve a certain benchmark, often neglecting their own health and surroundings.

Art Direction

Whereas for the light and mood for our shots, we took inspiration from 'Coco' and 'Luca' by Pixar.

Story Board

Animatic

Meet Our Character, The Old Man

An optimistic old man who is obsessed with the moon. He has big dreams and he is not afraid to reach into the unknown. Filled with hope, he works hard to achieve his goal.

Old Man: Design Exploration and Final 2D Designs

With the personality set, we began researching and playing around with various shapes and colors to decide what we want our main character to look like.

Old Man: Design Exploration in 3D

After selecting a character design that we think fits the picture of the Old Man in our mind, we explored further in 3D. (Software used: ZBrush)

Old Man: The Final Outcome

Many discussions later, we settled with this look for our main character! We want him to look as if he dressed for the occasion but also not too much of a lavish appearance, so we gave him a neat outfit with shabby-looking patches, accompanied with three main props: his scrapbook, his ticket and his suitcase.

Old Man: Rigging

Old Man: Animation Test

Based on the drawn key poses and expressions, the animators explored the animation style prior to the production stage. (Software used: Autodesk Maya)

Jump Into The World of Journey

We have a total of 3 main environments in our film:

• Earth Train Station: Where the Old Man first enters the scene, waiting to board the train to his dream destination, the Moon. (Including the train, the train cabin and the train hallway).
• Dream Clock Moon: What the Old Man imagines the moon to be like, as shown in his scrapbook.
• Moon Train Station: The train station on the ‘real’ Moon.

Earth Train Station

Design Exploration

Final Outcome

Train: Exterior, Cabin and Hallway

Design Exploration

Final Outcome

Dream Clock Moon

Final Outcome

Moon Train Station

Design Exploration

Final Outcome

Color Scripts

Lighting

When the layout planning is done, we started lighting our shots based on the color scripts done by the illustrators. Below is the compilation of all our raw renders.

Entering Post-Production: VFX and Compositing

Our film utilizes VFX to accentuate its magical nature. With a story full of enchantment, we use VFX to transport the audience into the magical realm of our film.

VFX References

VFX Tests

Compositing

In this stage, we bring all the raw shots and VFX renders to Adobe After Effects for light and mood enhancement. It's our first time doing compositing and we struggled a lot in the beginning, but we slowly adjusted to the workflow and ended up enjoying this section of post-production.

Special Thanks

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank our lecturers in The One Academy for guiding us through the entire process, our friends and family for giving us endless support and last but not least; our talented music composer, Andrew Bong, who crafted such a fantastic score for us.

Thank you, we hope you enjoyed the short film.

When things don't go our way, don't forget that it's about the journey, not the destination. Let's trust the process together!