Animation project:

(for the Bible of the work with both of our work, as well as The Treatment for this project, click here: theafterlifeanimation.carrd.co. / Ruth's Blog) 

Scrip Idea

"Once life is gone there's is only one left thing for a human to do, move to what others call the afterlife. We have different perspectives on what there is to see in that other side, hell or heaven, the underworld, the diyu, etc. We have these ideas that we get punished or compensated or we even reincarnate. None of these ideas are wrong, of course, but they are also not right. The Afterlife is much bigger and entertaining than this. The Afterlife is the biggest market you would ever find. Souls of the dead and creatures go alongside each other to offer a good pass though death, before some can go back to life once they trade their soul for a new one. You lost your eye while you're alive? Certainly you can fine a new one here! It's full of magnificent buildings and guides ready to assist you. Sadly, the only way to get here is by being a supernatural creature, or by being dead." 

Characters

Other than spirits of people, the Afterlife is full of supernatural creatures. Most of them are related to death itself, but its not completly necessesary. Creatures such as ''demons'' or guides, even moster like creatures walk along the streets. They can be found as shop owners, ''turist'' guides or any other job in the market,

Main Charcaters

Side Characters

Places inspirations and first desings

Our cenography is based in Studios Ghibli's. We did a mix between aciant japanese and chinese cultures with the moderm adquitecture and places. We somehow mixed the ideas of after life of different cultures with capitalism and created a big market for every being related to dead.

A torii (鳥居) is a traditional Japanese gate commonly found at the entrance of Shinto shrine marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred ( from the physical to spiritual world). 

This is the door the mysterious girl walks through to get to the Afterlife.

Treatment of the concept 

Everything that comes from here is the first approchement of the concept. This is the storyline that follows the Opening we ended up making for the story ''The Afterlife''.

Longline 

 A girl enters in the underworld. She looks for someone in the Afterlife to help her, since is reaveal at the end she doesn't rember dying.

Characters 

• The Mysterious Girl - A young and calm girl who entered the underworld, but doen't undertand why.

• Name - A shinigami who works in a shop of souls, with not too much energy and kinda bitter

• Angelo - An angel like person who works as a guide for any lost soul. He doesnt really have much importance in the animatic, but thanks to his maps is that the girl can get to Name's shop. Just so we can know his name while redacting the Synopsis.

• Uni - The fish bouls, hanging around Name's shop and the reason why he talked to The Mysterious Girl in a rude tone. 

Synopsis

A girl wakes up in one of the entrances to the Afterlife. She's confused, but still makes her way inside, trusting the door will take her to a better place.

The misterious girl enters the market, looking at her sorroundings and walking her way in. She is more confused than surprised, looking for someone trusthworthy who can help her,

She gets to one of the Guides Guidances Spots, wher Angelo is working not paying too much attention to the girl. She takes one of the mini maps, which also has advertisments from places around. When she looks up aain, the whole place is gone.

The girl keeps making her way, now using the map on the paper. She is looking fora shop in where she thinks she will find help since is said they could make all her dreams come true.

When she gets to the shop, she get excited. She's happy she finally found the place. 

Once she enters the shop, Name starts lecturing her, thinking its a certain ''fish boy'', claiming only dead people can enter in the shop.

Name realizes it not the person he thought it would be, feeling embarrassed and making the situation a bit uncomfortable. 

The girl immediatly takes the paper with the advertaisment of the shop out and shows it to him. She then tells the shinigami she needs his help.

The screen goes dark, and you can hear the girl saying she hasn't died yet.

These animations were a big inspiration for our whole idea. It affected the character design style, it added ''simplicity'' to our designs and it helps me as a guide while creating the animatic.

The name of the artist is Komugiko. Her character's style inspired me the most to create The Mysterious Girl as one of the main characters of the story. If it wasn't for this, she might have never existed in the first place,

Animation practises and exploring for the final product

This assignment was a ride. Even thought me and Ruth started doing research and designing characters and places together, for personal circustances I ended up doing most of the productiong part of the animatic along  with the animatic itself. I spent too many hours doing the main task, and on my breaks I even edited the Bible to look presentable. However, I always enjoy working with Ruth. We alway come with great ideas while working together, and her research, recommendations and ideas are, as always, amaizing.

I'm surprise at myself that I could put as much as I could together. I created scripts,  storyboards, some characters, some places and the animatic as well as I was in charge of the music, the timing and putting all together in an Animation Bible. Working alone is rough, seriously, but I have to admit I like having things under control and since at the end it was only me taking care of how everything turned out I guess I enjoyed myself alittle. One thing that I have on my mind right now it's that I'm amaizing. It's not that I have a big ego or anything because I don't, but looking at how much I've done in a short time makes me realize that if I did things on time, with peace, I would totally do something even better, much more better. 

I'm completly aware of all the things I've done wrong. I'm horrible with the sound, or at least I think I could do better. And, of course, everything else. It's hard sometimes for me to just get out of bed, but I can't let that destroy what I'm in this country for. 

Even thought its not perfect, I'm still satisfied with the result. Maybe it's because at the end I did everything by myself. And I hope you enjoy this work as well, Omid. (I did it, yay!)