Puzzle Pieces

Francesca and Lizbeth – Puzzle Pieces
Storyboard Pro - TVPaint
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​Direction, Production and Storyboard: Luisa Cruz (2nd year MA Animation)
Animation and Character Design: Vasilena Kavanozova (Level 3 Animation), Victoria Povey (Level 3 Animation)


What the animators say about the piece:
"The conversation between the two mothers gives us an insight about their experience and after sharing their points of view it leaves us feeling uplifted.
As we aimed to show precisely this in the animation we made the little birds complement each other and at the end fit perfectly under their mother wings as they shared a warm and fluffy hug."
​http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05mww3n

When I was given the opportunity to have another brief with Childrens in Need Charity and the BBC radio,  I was heads on to making it. Practice is important not only in the technical aspects of animation but also at the moment of facing a production. Bsides, being a brief with only one month to get the animation to screen I was sure to be able to accomplish it if I followed a fitting schedule.

For this project I also worked in a team with two animators from third year, and assumed the role of director. At this point I already had experience doing several aspects of a production  and since I had a deadline clear I organized every single task for the animators to be able to focus on animating. In our production meetings we discussed aspects of the work like design and story, and by the moment the animatic was ready, I jumped directly to work on the backgrounds and preparing the file for the final edition. Was the kind of project that requires a steady pipeline to be able to deliver what we already had  promised to the BBC.

In both briefs for the BBC many groups dropped in the middle of the production for not being able to finish it but personally, the experience to bringing something to screen is far more valuable as it shows the organization and the ability to compromise to the ones that made it possible to complete the animation in such a short time.
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The experience of being a director was important in many aspects, one of them being that one of the future developments in a storyboard artists career is becoming director themselves and, in the guiding environment of the academia, it was the safest way for me to try this role I feel is too far from where I am standing right now. My major difficulty was communicating with the other team members as someone in charge, to be able to drive exactly what I envisioned and, as ALSO a flaw in my storyboard skills, is also not in the animatic. Even with the stressful nature of directing a short, I tried to apply what other with more experience directing told me. Having people to ask for advice in this aspect was one of the reasons we could deliver the animation.