Soarin' Heights

Hey Folks!

Soarin’ Heights is a thrilling animated adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk in 1920s New York at the height of the Art Deco Design style. After the ruthless mob boss of the city, Mr. Giant, steals the deed to Lucky Jack’s magic bean farm, the farmer must use his wits to sneak into the mob boss’s skyscraper in the clouds to do whatever he can to take it back.

 Apologies, but the film is currently private except for viewing by judges and recruiters until a later date when it will be open to everyone. However, I have plenty of progress work and behind-the-scenes sneak peeks that I am more than happy to share!

Meet the cast!

 Two characters are essential to the fairy tale; you need a Jack, and you need a giant. Lucky Jack is a plucky farmer who uses his smarts and quick thinking to get out of sticky situations, while Mr. Giant is a conniving individual who is brutal in all tendencies and practices. I had never done something with two characters that had such drastic size and proportion differences, which provided a challenge that was fun to tackle while animating. For reference, Jack in Maya is 5 ft 6 in (167 cm), which makes Mr. Giant over 100 ft (30.48 m) tall!

Lucky Jack

 Prone to jumping into a situation without thinking too much about the consequences, Lucky Jack is the owner of his family’s business of Magic beans. Their land offers one of the last bastions of nature in the crazy metropolis they call home. Now that the land is in danger of being taken, he uses his peculiar set of skills and resources to take the deed to his land back and take down a notorious figure while he’s at it.

Mr. Giant

 A mob boss that will do anything to grab power in the city, Mr. Giant is not to be messed with. He won’t stop until every piece of and building of the city is under his control. Now that he has trapped Lucky Jack into a deal to take the deed to the farmer’s home, he’s one step closer to his goal.

Animation behind the scenes!

 The animatic, although containing the essential elements of Jack and the Beanstalk, went through many iterations until I landed on the final product. I could then start filming reference for every shot (which mostly meant I ran around like crazy) to get a sense of physicality or unique acting moments that I wouldn’t have expected. Due to the physical scale and some of the moments, I couldn’t film reference for those parts and had to expand upon my own imagination. I further improved each reference in Maya as I could exaggerate and design better elements or a better acting beat altogether. Also, things had to be shortened or lengthened depending on the action because it’s a lot easier to accidentally speed things up in boards that take far longer to actually act out.

Development and ideation!

 An essential premise of the short film is the idea that it takes place in the 1920s New York City, thus the height of the Art Deco movement. One of my passions is exploring art history and I’ve always had a fascination with the lavish design of metropolitan life back then. There was a lot of research on that as well as the animation style of the time, primarily the Fleischer brothers' cartoons and modern recreations of the same style, such as the video game Cuphead. 

Thank you so much for stoppin by!

Thank you for reading through and looking at the main process work for my short film! This project was wild from start to finish, with many highs and lows. But overall, it was an incredibly fun time where I learned so much and was truly a fantastic capstone to the crazy four years of my collegiate experience when I learned so much about and fell in love with animation.

And here's too many more projects to come!