by daffaaa

Character development

When we were designing our characters Ember and Nova, we went through many different versions of how we wanted the character to look. With the characters being space spirits, we were unsure of how much we human or non-human we wanted them to appear.

While creating character designs, I sought inspiration from the character designs of Jayce and Viktor from the series Arcane during which they appeared in an astral form and the character design of White Diamond from the series Steven Universe.

With these visual inspirations, we decided upon characters that would have a mostly humanoid look but with minimal facial features.

Something we considered while designing our characters were whether the characters should have visuals or designs on their bodies or whether the bodies should be blank as we had feedback that audience might not be able to differentiate the characters enough.

While more intricate designs could have potentially been more interesting, we decided to go back to the initial, more simple designs of the characters as additional details on their bodies would have been distracting and unnecessary. To solve the issue of the audience not being able to differentiate the characters enough, we decided to make use of different colours for each character to make them distinguishable.

Background design and Animation Process

For my scenes, which were mainly the first ten seconds of the film, and afterwards, the kissing scene between Ember and Nova, I used different influences to create the visual design of the backgrounds.

For the opening scene I animated which included multiple shots of the black hole, I sought to emphasise the danger of the void by depicting the black hole as having violent, powerful energy. To do this, I animated the accretion disk/the bands around the black hole as having multiple swirling lights to emphasise the franticness of the black hole. I also depicted the characters as being dwarfed by the black hole to emphasise the size of it. I also chose a blend of dark red/maroon colours to depict the space around the black hole to create an ominous ambience for the environment.

While creating the look of the black hole, the visual appearance of it was inspired by the black hole featured in the film Interstellar.

To animate the black hole, I took visual inspiration from the animated video What if you fall into a Black Hole? by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, particularly with how the video animates multiple coloured bands of light spinning rapidly around the centre of the black hole. I chose to depict my black hole in a similar manner with lights spinning around the black hole’s accretion disk to emphasise the chaotic energy of the void.

When animating the characters trying to resist the pull of the black hole, I had to find a way to visually convey that they were trying to fight back against the black hole. To do this, I decided to depict the characters as trying to slow down how fast they are being pulled into the black hole. I animated swarms of asteroids flying quickly both behind the characters and in front of them which contrasts against the slower speed of the characters. This helps visually convey that other objects being sucked in rapidly and the characters flying slowly because they are trying to slow themselves down.

While animating the scene of the characters being sucked into the void of the black hole, I sought to depict the visuals as being overwhelming, as well as having a feeling of rapid intensity as the characters are being dragged into the void without any control. To do this, I animated the black hole as having rapidly spinning lights of different flashing colours with a void in the centre that would become larger and consume the characters. I also animated the characters as moving rapidly around the screen and further into the centre to depict them as falling in a chaotic void.

While animating this scene, I took inspiration from the animation of the opening sequence of the series Jentry Chau vs The Underworld, where the protagonist, Jentry Chau, is depicted as falling into a rapidly expanding void. I used this to provide me with a visual understanding of how the characters could appear while being dragged into the black hole.

I also took inspiration from Arcane, particularly the scene where the characters entered the Anomaly and the visuals depicted them being warped and distorted. I used the visuals from that scene to influence how I animated the characters inside the black hole by also having my characters be warped and stretched as they entered the void.

Along with animating the characters being sucked into the black hole, I also animated the characters embracing each other and kissing later on after finding each other inside the black hole.

While animating Nova approaching Ember, I had the webbing of the black hole twist and stretch as Ember tried to get closer to Nova. This secondary movement I had done helped to show the characters interacting with the environment around them and thus enhance the scene.

Before the scene where Ember and Nova kiss, I added an extra scene that depicts a brief moment where Ember and Nova look directly at each other and Ember rests his head on Nova’s hand. The addition of this scene was to provide greater emotional emphasis on both the relationship between the two characters and the distress they feel in the situation.

When animating the two characters kissing, I initially had trouble figuring out how to animate it as we needed to show the characters merging together into a bright flash. I tried to find different ways of how to show them bursting into light and having their outlines disappear before settling on having them fully turn into white and having the white expand to the corners of the screen after that.

Animation tests

During the animating of a few scenes, we initially had trouble figuring out how the transfer the rough look of the scene from the animatic to the final version of the film. Because of this, I did a couple of animation tests to help my partners figure out the appearance of their scenes.

The black hole exploding was particularly trick to figure out at first as we were unsure of how to make it lose its form. So for this scene, I thought to take inspiration from both the appearance and the animation of the Anomaly from Arcane as I felt the warping spherical appearance of the Anomaly would be a good example to visualise how an orb could lose its form.

During the visual development of the film, we faced a few different challenges, most notably, having different group members having different art styles. Because of this, having the characters look visually consistent throughout the film was a significant challenge as different group members visually interpreted the character in different ways with the points on Ember’s head particularly being a challenge for others to draw consistently. We were able to solve this issue by having using character reference sheets so that we all understood how the characters should be drawn, and I also shared with my group members the brushes, the brush size, and the colours I had used to draw the characters so it was consistent throughout.

Initial story writing and development

The story we created is that of two space spirits, named Ember and Nova, who are in love with each other and save each other from a black hole.

Throughout the development of our story, we went through many different versions of the story as we initially struggled to have a clear development of the story.

Our initial story was to simply create a visual sequence of two space spirits in love with each other who dance and kiss, forming a star together. However, this initial version of the story lacked an in depth storyline and was merely visuals which would have resulted in a weaker story. 

Because of this, we were advised to deepen the story of our characters and create a more engaging story. To do this, we began with creating lore for our characters, providing a backstory for who they are and what drives the story. We created the story of the characters being space spirits who had been separated for ages and were finding each other again. From this, the story evolved to them facing obstacles in order to be reunited together. The two characters would be finding each other, braving a meteor shower in an asteroid field before having a moment of calm and nearly reuniting. As they are about to embrace however, Nova is sucked into a nearby black hole that Ember has to save her from before they finally reunite and are able to dance and kiss.

We found that this initial story was too long however and would not be feasible to create within the thirty seconds we were limited to for this project. With this in mind, we decided to condense the story to only having them being sucked into the black hole as the primary conflict of the story. In this version, the story would open with Ember and Nova seeing each other while circling around a black hole and would approach each other. As their hands are about to touch, nova is suddenly pulled into the black hole, leaving a shocked ember to take in what is happening before dashing off to rescue them from the black hole. In a tense scene with them reaching their arms out to save each other, their hands would slip before they managed to grab each other’s arms. Ember and Nova are then able to save each other and pull each other away from the black hole to embrace and dance before merging into a star together.

It was this stage of the story that we would begin storyboarding it as we were initially most confident with this version. However, we received feedback that the story lacked enough of a struggle. The story was resolved too easily by having Ember simply try harder to save Nova from the pull of the black hole. We also received feedback that Nova being pulled into the blackhole and needing Ember to rescue her made the character lack agency as she was unable to do anything by herself. With this feedback, we decided to change the story again to make it more concise and have both characters have more of an equal role.

Final story version and final animatic

In the final version of the story, we opened the scene immediately in the middle of the conflict as both characters are already trying to escape the pull of the black hole. The story begins with a focus on Ember’s perspective who is trying to save Nova but failing as both end up sucked into the void. From there, the story switches to focus on Nova’s perspective who wakes up inside the black hole and finds Ember trapped in the void. The two characters meet and embrace together, kissing and merging together. They burst into a flash of light which destroys the black hole and leaves a star behind.

The final version of the story features a few major changes from the previous versions we made. A significant change we made was that the story opens immediately in the middle of the conflict and as the two characters are trying to save each other. Beginning the story in the heat of the action allows us to provide a concise telling of the characters’ backstories as by showing that the two characters are trying to save each other, they already have a relationship and are connected to each other. Another significant change we made is that we have the characters fail to save each other and are sucked into the black hole instead, as well as embracing each other while trapped in the black hole. This allows us to subvert the audience’s expectations as the characters resolve the conflict by accepting their fates together instead of having an easy solution to escape the conflict. Also, with this version of the story, we were able to have both characters have equal active roles. The first half of the film shows Ember’s efforts to save Nova and the latter half of the film provides Nova with an equal role as she seeks out Ember to comfort him. With this, we were able to have both characters try to save each other rather than only having one be dependent on the other to save them.