Animation Short - Scared Of Stairs

Short Films

Oct 31

The things you fear as a kid vs when you’re an adult are very different. One day stairs are your friend, the next a bitter enemy 😩

Inspiration of the short

The thing about this short, “Scared Of Stairs” is that it was kind of a collaborative effort. This is the first of a sub-series of short ideas I had for a long time, called “Adult Nightmares”. Initially I had a very different idea (that I won’t share here because I do intend to make it some day), but I was on a phone call with my brother and he mentioned that an adult nightmare to him would be falling down the steps. He’s a bit over 40, and I’m on the fast track heading there and I immediately resonated with the idea. Funnily enough, I have a lot of experience falling up stairs, but not as much experience falling down them, but that’s a story for another day.

After my brother and I had finished talking, I mentioned to him about wanting to make a group chat of trusted confidants who can help me brainstorm new ideas. He thought it was a good idea and pushed me to do so. After making the group, I submitted this idea to them for feedback, and they enjoyed the idea. Sometimes the spontaneity of discussion leads to even better ideas, so I’m glad I was able to get feedback on this short before producing it.

Goal of the short

The major goal for this short was to bring down production time for “Moment Of My Time” / “Character Moments” shorts. These shorts usually average around 25-30 seconds of run time and I’ve wanted to cut their production size down for a long time. I finally got the chance, as before this production was started, I had updated my pipeline with more limitations to help keep things manageable. Fortunately I was able to complete this goal, as the final runtime is actually a bit under 15 seconds. Shorts this size are a lot more manageable and can be produced more quickly while retaining a high quality of animation. The ultimate goal for my short form content is to be able to produce a short within 2-3 days, and this short was a test to see if I could move all of my content to this shorter, bite-sized format. “Moment Of My Time” / “Character Moments” shorts are the most intensive shorts for me to produce, so it was important to be able to reign things in for the future.

Production intrigue

The most memorable part of producing this short was that, for some reason I had a lot of trouble producing the perspective shot (cut 2). As embarrassing as it is to admit that I went to art school for 4 years and was actually decent at perspective (at the time), this cut humbled me. Frustrated I was getting no where, I eventually remembered that I learned a bit of blender and realized I could make a staircase in that program and use it as a reference for the short. I clumsily put it together in a few hours (spread over a couple of days), but I was happy that it came out exactly how I wanted it to in the final version. It was nice to work in blender again. When I learned how to work in the program, I remember wanting to integrate it more into my shorts, and now I think it’ll be fun to look for more opportunities to make projects that take advantage of 3d modeling.

Fun fact

This short contains the first use of my animal puppet mini-rigs. It’s a cartoon version of my dog “Fendi”, who watches over the animated version of me in this short.

Final thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed making this project, and I loved how it came out. Toward the end of production I had the idea to give the character Halloween themed clothes and I implemented that once most of the animation was done. Clothing style flexibility was one of the major goals of the V6 puppets and it’s been underutilized in these “Character Moments” shorts, but I was happy that I was able to remember to do this. It doesn’t quite feel like a Halloween short without the colors. Lastly, I did a lot more hand drawing for this short, as it was easy to do with this version of the puppets, and I think that adds a certain charm that I’ve been missing from my recent, Toonboom Harmony puppet animated shorts.

Thanks for reading, and please enjoy the short!