PenPals

Introduction

"Pen Pals" is a short film created by a team of five passionate students during their second year at Escape Studios in London. This was the first short film we have ever made and we learnt a lot while creating this short film. It was six weeks project and we created this short film which includes storyboarding, animation, rigging, writing a playscript and being rendered.

Synopsis

Logline: "Two shy children manage to make friends, all thanks to a simple fountain pen."

PenPals is about two children who are shy and struggle to make friends. A young girl called Daisy who just started at a new school and struggled to make friends on her first day. Then she meets a young boy named Roger as she knocks her pen over by accident and he gives it back to her. He then notices Daisy is upset and asks her if she is ok and she tells her she does not have anyone to play with her. Roger tells her he can play and the two children become friends.

Meet Daisy and Roger

These are our old concept art between Daisy and Roger. We initially were going to have Daisy wearing green, however, we decided to make her colour pallet blue and pink to make her more girly. Roger was originally going to be wearing purple, however, we decided to make his colour pallet green to show his shyness. 

Daisy

A shy timid new girl who struggles to make friends.

Roger

A young lonely boy who feels empathy for Daisy and plucks up the courage to be friends.

Portraits and Profiles Daisy and Roger Rigs

To create this film, we decided to use the Kayla and Kyle rigs for the children because we thought these were the best rigs to use for the children. Here below we have before and after the colours and the materials of the rigs were changed.

Our Setting

We were going to have the classroom on the first floor and show the playground happy children playing, however, we decided to change that because we were told to have the classroom on a higher level and show the buildings instead to save time with our renders.

Our Storyboard

Animatic

We have decided to take the writing out of there since the lines Daisy wrote "I must speak up in class" were very outdated in today's world. We also changed the dialogue for the script and decided to end the children running out of class instead of Roger waiting for Daisy.

Our Team Roles

Jess Kelly: Director, Art Director, Storyboard Artist, Modeller, rigging artist, character designer, Voice Actor, Animator 

Caroline Geddis: Producer, Animation Lead, Concept Artist, Animator, Voice Actor, 2D artist.

Serena Kerridge: Producer, Rigging Artist, Modeller, Screenplay writer, Animator

Abi Ocay: Storyboard Artist, Sound Designer, Editor, Animator,

Lauren Rance: Modeller, 2D Artist, Graphic Designer, Animator