The Little Rat by Pipeline Pilots

The 2D animated short "The Little Rat" was made by the film team Pipeline Pilots during our Junior and Senior years of attending DigiPen: Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA. We aimed to tell a heartwarming story about a character learning to accept their differences and overcome adversity. The film conveys a tale of a small mouse, Minuet, who lives in a world full of rats. Her small stature makes her an easy target for bullying by the local rat teens (Brutus, Freddy, and Ty), who chase her through town. Minuet and the bullies find themselves in some trouble after running into the abandoned part of town where they get trapped in a rat cage. Being a mouse, Minuet is able to escape and she is left with the choice of saving the trio of bullies.

The Pipeline Pilots team is made up of eight individuals: Madison Benson, Nitis Borirakpanich, Hayden Meyer, Ginger Chanfrau, Olyvia Brehm, Lily Eubanks, Philandra Eargle, and Maxine Regalado!

BTS: Our Work Process

Software
The Pipeline Pilots team used several pieces of software to produce The Little Rat: Toon Boom Harmony, Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Although The Little Rat was largely produced using Toon Boom Harmony, our work process initially started out with a heavier focus on Adobe Photoshop and Autodesk Maya. We used Adobe Photoshop for brainstorming and for our style guide pages. Autodesk Maya was used for environment blocking as we had created a 3D model of the rat town that the characters lived in. We used this to help us with character-environment proportions as well as using it as a baseline for our 2D-painted environments. By using 3D blocking for our environments, we were able to have realistic perspective in depth in our drawings, as well as keep our work consistent. Toon Boom Harmony was used for all of our 2D character and VFX animation, which was then exported and edited, composited, and polished in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Storyboard
One of our first steps to the project was rough storyboards; thumbnailing and iterating over and over again to get the story right. We tested out different story elements, character designs, shot types, compositions, etc. These initial drawings determined the future of the film and once we reached a storyboard we were satisfied with, we moved on to our next step.

3D Blocking
After the story for The Little Rat was more concrete and we were satisfied with our storyboards, our teammate Nitis Borirakpanich then used Autodesk Maya to block out the rat town in 3D. Composition and props were tied down and perspective was established.

Environment Line and Color
Environments and animation were being worked on concurrently; while some artists worked on animating characters, our environment artists used 3D blocking to design our 2D environments. Adobe Photoshop was used to draw the linework, which was then painted using our color script (color thumbnails) as a reference point.

Animation Line and Color
While the environments were being drawn and painted, our animators were working in Toon Boom Harmony to animate the VFX and characters. Each shot or sequence was assigned to an animator, who then made a rough animation pass. Animations were then improved and tied down before the linework was done. Then the linework was colored using the color script and our character model turnarounds as a baseline. After flat color was applied, some basic cell shading and highlights were added to the characters.

Polish and Composite
After each shot had a complete background, as well as colored and shaded character animation, it was then taken into Adobe Premiere Pro. Each shot would then be finalized by compiling all the shots together into one video and then editing and polishing it where needed. This meant a bit of time editing, adding in music and sound effects, as well as some light visual effects such as additional lighting or filters. Some of our environments were placed in separate layers where needed to convey better depth or for foreground environment pieces. After this part of the process was complete, we could export our project and view the film in its entirety.

BTS: Our Team

The Little Rat was produced from late 2021 to early 2023 at DigiPen by the team Pipeline Pilots. Our team is relatively small with only eight people! However, we certainly haven't worked on this without help, so we thank all of our professors and peers for their feedback and knowledge, which was invaluable. We also have an outsourced sound composer Joe-Pietro Abela, who made an amazing soundtrack to go with our film.

Pipeline Pilots:

Madison Benson   -    Art Director, Story, Animation
Hayden Meyer   -   Producer, Animation
Nitis "Kop" Borirakpanich   -   Story, Backgrounds, Workbooking, Editing
Olyvia Brehm   -   Animation, Story, VFX
Philandra Eargle   -   Character Design, Animation
Lily Eubanks   -   Character Design, Backgrounds, Animation
Ginger Chanfrau   -   Character Design, Animation
Maxine Regalado   -   Animation
Elizabeth Pulanco (former team member)   -   Early character design, animation
Joe-Pietro Abela   -   Music, Sound Design

Thank you, we hope you enjoyed our work!