Laura Hodkin

The idea came from watching a girl in my seminar biting her nails and I thought that it looked like such a gross thing to do in public (I over-imagined spit and nails flying everywhere. No shame though, I horrendously bite my own nails). I loved this idea of taking something so small and human and exaggerating it to an extreme. The subway setting came from thinking about places where I felt the most anxious where this nail-biting could be used as a coping mechanism for the character - when in fact it just adds to the already gross, warm atmosphere of the subway car itself.

I thought it would be nice to start with a mood board that gives a brief idea of the look and feel of the type of film that I'm going for:

I began looking at work in the form of other animated short films, particular Singles by Rebecca Sugar which does a wonderful job of expressing the characters panic and sadness in exaggerated movements. Whilst it has the look of a "traditional" cartoon, the film plays with a conceptual narrative of the characters fear of being alone.
Another influence has been American cartoonist Charles Burns and his bold, black and white style. The huge blocks of shadow and detail he applies to his characters gives off a never-ending sense of doom.
In contrast to this I'm interested in using bright, bold colour alongside black; similar to that of Michael Olivo's illustrations. I've been looking at neon lights used in real life and found them to have an uneasy quality because of their unnatural colour in nature. It's a lighting technique used several times in the film Natural Born Killers (1994) to create a psychedelic and surreal feeling, most notably when the characters enter a green neon-lit drug store at a particularly heightened state of panic.

I took a trip on the subway in Glasgow and found an eerie little station to get some reference shots. It definitely reassured me that the subway is an uneasy feeling place to be.

I asked a few friends what made them anxious about being on the subway/public transport in general and got a mix of fears that I imagine at least one is common to everybody, including myself:

"Missing my train"
Finding a seat next to someone who looks nice
Being pick pocketed
Being squished
"Someone touching me"
Making weird eye contact with a stranger
Being in an explosion
Somebody shouting about an explosion
The train breaking down
Breaking down in darkness
"Missing my stop"
Getting off at the wrong stop
"Losing my ticket"
Being trapped in the doors
Being late

A few more photos I took more recently whilst travelling on the underground in London:

(Accidental thumb in the photo, but this dude on the right is my ideal inspiration for the guys on my train)

So my initial 'narrative' as shown in the animatic below included a few of these fears. It focused on my character becoming worried that she would miss her stop and panicking because of the people's behaviour around her (touching her, shouting at her) until the train breaks down and she pulls open the doors to escape. This didn't include the nail-biting at all but I thought I would show this version as a starting point to my overall idea:

Although this is rough, I like the inked flow to the characters. I also like the imagery of a wave of people forcing her onto the train. However, I think her moments on the train appear too "normal" for the type of film I'm trying to make. (You can also tell I was heavily inspired by Rebecca Sugars 'Singles' once she jumps off the train and is falling through the air.) I would rather my character appear forced to stay on the train with no way out. I'd like the behaviour of the people around her to be more obnoxious and repetitive, forcing her to bite her nails as a way to calm down and become increasingly more abstract as she becomes more overwhelmed.

I want her to be quite bulky and big so just by being crammed onto the train she would be annoying to the passengers without even meaning to be.

(my friend filmed herself biting her nails for me. what a gem.)

A more finalised look of the character. I gave her a tighter outfit so animating her limbs would be much more fun, and bigger hair to just be more annoying. The brow line should constantly make her look worried. I guess I'd like her to be the sort of character that the other characters find too big and the audience feels sorry for.

A few initial drawings and doodles. The sweat dripping from her face should also be a constant factor (unless she feels at peace) so the audience knows she isn't feeling good about her situation. It will also play nicely to abstract imagery later on. The crowd around her also won't be as detailed as drawn here, but rather "blobs" only coming into shape when they interact with her.

The following storyboards are currently the most finalised and only show the opening and ending:

OPENING:

We see her nervous to take a step down into the looming subway. She sighs as though she's ready to do this...until a guy shoves past her. TITLE. She watches him until he's down the stairs and gone. Waits for a little while, still unsure. Takes her first step. She's walking down. A wave comes from behind, crashing into her and forcing her down into the subway. We see lines and shapes of people in the wave as it continues to drag her down and squashes her into the subway car.

Initial hand drawn animation tests from the opening sequence:

(I've decided to make the film entirely digitally using photoshop to animate. Whilst traditional hand drawn has a certain line quality I really like, it's not easy for me to be quick and impulsive with it without having to keep checking that it looks ok. Also, theres a deadline looming.)

MIDDLE:

When she is on the train is where I want things to gradually become more hectic, which is where music will play an important part at this stage. I wanted this scene to have its own natural flow and found it tricky to work from nothing so I asked Johnny Moutzouris, a current student at Edinburgh, to produce a rough improvised jazz piece for me that I can use as a starting point for the storyboarding and animation. The vid below has the instructions which I gave to him (alongside a brief synopsis of the film, character designs and concept art) and the piece of music which he sent back:

Once the entire film is animated I will hand it back to Johnny who will re-score the music for the entire film so it flows well as once piece.

I took the opportunity to test a little more nail-biting scenarios as things become more abstract:

I began to think what if the other people on the train had annoying habits like she did and ended up with a list of gross and obnoxious things:

Eating messy/smelly food on the train
Coughing
Spitting
Talking too loudly
Hot and sweating in the car
"The projectile puker"
Masturbating
"This fiend licked all across the handrail"
Picking at scabs and spots
Drunk train

Narrowed down to three things that would encourage her to become more and more distressed:

A guy being obnoxious with a newspaper
A guy coughing all over her
A guy staring at her

The paper will push and squash the girl as it opens and closes.

The 'koff' will attack the girl with a constant shower of spit.

The eyes will see the girl and snake towards her, crawling up her body before attacking.

Their actions begin to combine, all the while she's biting her nails, tearing her fingers off. Then an abrupt stop, because she's finally reached her destination:

END:

We see that she was heading to the cinema, a place thats made obvious its where she feels the most calm and safe (no sweat dripping). A guy walks in and out of the entirety of the empty cinema he plonks himself right behind her. END.

The only way I could really figure out the route my film would go (especially concerning the middle portion) would be to make something of an animatic (closer to rough animation) that I could make spontaneously as I went. I was also struggling to work with the sound Johnny gave me, often I found it in fact restricted me from drawing movements I wanted to happen. SO I felt the need to start fresh.
I gave myself a time around I wanted to make sure to hit: 3 minutes, including 20 seconds for each stranger she would interact with on the train:

A couple of test shots for the opening scene:

I like the look of the stranger here, but worried just the black/white will get lost in the crowd sequences. I want to make the strangers look more distinct from the main character to give the impression that she is 'invading' their world and figured some texture would make a good contrast:

Also thought I should include a small insight into the different colour palettes. The one on the left is when she is actually on the train. As she becomes more distressed, the colours will get gradually redder/warmer:

A couple of emails when discussing the sound design. An example included the original voices on the train sound too 'demonic', and instead I asked for the voices to be more of a 'blah blah' so it would a bit sillier, rather than scary.