DA1 '23 - Project #3: "The Monster Under the Bed" - Artist Statement & Video

For this project, I wanted to experiment with bringing an animated character into a real-life environment. For many years now, I've been writing stories, both by myself and collaboratively, and have accumulated many different original characters in the process. I've become deeply attached to some of these characters, but I've never had the opportunity to really tell their stories in a tangible way beyond messing around with close friends in discord servers. When I heard about this project, I saw it as an opportunity to make one of my characters feel a little more "real" in some small way, and I went for it.

The premise of the video itself is fairly simple. Throughout, the video is a recording of an interview, along with footage showing a day in the life of an average college student. However, the student is constantly followed around by what the unnamed interviewers refer to as "an unclassified entity", and what the interviewee calls "the monster under their bed". Throughout the video, the monster is shown getting into bouts of mischief as the pair goes about their day, although the interviewee does admit that they enjoy the creature's presence, and couldn't imagine life without them. I wanted to convey a sense of companionship, almost like the sort of bond one has with a childhood pet. Though the monster has their moments, they truly do love their human, and the human loves them back.

For the monster itself, I chose one of my OCs by the name of Aevum, although they're never referred to by name in the video itself. I chose this character in particular because they are actually a shapeshifter, but with a very simple "base" appearance and a preference for simple, blob-like forms. This helped me not get too bogged down in drawing and animating the creature, since if I'd used a more complex design, I likely would not have been able to have them in every scene due to time constraints. Additionally, Aevum is already a very mischievous, impulsive individual in their cannon, making them perfect for the role.

I started developing each scene by drawing sprites of Aevum and any limbs/appendages/tentacles I knew they'd need in Photoshop. Then, I animated said sprites in After Effects on top of my real-life footage. Originally, I was worried that it would prove to be difficult to work with my real-life footage, since I had been acting to nothing while filming, and I didn't have time to reshoot if I didn't sell the illusion that the creature was really there. Thankfully, all my footage came out well, in no small part thanks to assistance from my classmate, Grace Yoon, and that stage went smoothly. We were even able to have some "practical effects", using some tape (we didn't have string handy) to make a cup fall over so that Aevum could "knock it over" in the video.

After animating Aevum's movements in After Effects, I then used Adobe Animate to animate their facial expressions frame by frame. Since, again, Aevum can shapeshift, I was able to get really creative with this, giving Aevum multiple eyes in some moments to make them seem more monster-like and making their expression a simple emoticon in others for comedic effect. I wanted to make Aevum feel like a real creature with a personality, thoughts (or lack thereof), and feelings of their own. While I think I succeeded at this to some degree, time constraints meant that I couldn't be as detailed with Aevum's expressions as I wanted to. If I did this project again, I would most certainly dedicate at least a few days to really planning out, detailing, and fully animating Aevum's expressions to make the character more lifelike. They Need More Eyes, as a treat.

I think one place where my project truly fell flat was audio, both due to time constraints and lack of planning. I was able to get the interview voiceover to a point where I was quite happy with it, but for the scenes themselves, I could've put a lot more effort into developing more sounds for both ambiance and the creature itself. This was by far my most common critique, and I absolutely understand where people were coming from. Some background music or static/camera noises could have drastically enhanced the mood of the video, and even just some simple animal noises would've helped Aevum feel more fleshed out as a character. It's a shame that I didn't think to put more time into it, and I'll be sure to focus on it next time I do a project like this.

However, those problems aside, I'm fairly pleased with my end product. I think I accomplished what I set out to do, and I certainly learned a lot while working on it. Considering I've never animated outside of looping a few still images as a gif before, I'm happy with what I've done with the time I was given, and I think that if Aevum truly were real, they'd like the final product too.

---

Youtube Link: https://youtu.be/ZVqvpoZ-PzQ