After having made so many compromises in my first animation, 'To-Mak' in 95 (due to its natural process of collaboration), I decided to make a film that I can focus on my initial approach of 'moving illustration'.
This 'Circus' film was my undergraduate thesis project as well.
I wanted to find a theme that offered me plenty of visuals to play around, and came up with the idea of visualizing 'Circus'. At that time, I was very fascinated by primitive arts and decided to adapt its art style into the film as well.
On top of that..... I also used pointillism (getting inspired by Seurat's) for creating imagery, which... was the craziest idea that I've ever had in any animation production by far.... without any doubt. After 'DOTTING' every single image with 4~5 layers of cells for 6 minute traditional cell/drawing animation, my poor arm gained some kind of abnormal muscle cramps that lasted for a while.
I don't remember sleeping much for that whole year. I couldn't eat that well either for I didn't even have money for the film production. So many difficulties and obstacles behind the scenes... but I have to admit that I actually enjoyed every single day of it.
Here are some production sketches, design reference, and design samples as well as animation clip.
Imdb listing
Imdb listing
