Clinical Lycanthropy is a short animated movie about the inability of communicating a deep inner malaise, referring to themes like mental illness and loneliness. The story follows Ava, a young girl in her mid-twenties who has recently tried to end her life, and her girlfriend Emma, who’s taking care of her in their apartment.
Ava is facing a heavy mental condition in which she sees other people as threatening bears. This leads to her feeling like a fish out of water, so she’s constantly trying to escape from the reality she feels she doesn't belong in.
We realized the short using mixed animation techniques: digital 2D and cut-out stop-motion.
The difference between the looks and movements of the characters separate what's real and what's inside Ava's mind.
We used toon Boom Harmony for 2D characters. We also drew the shadows and faces frame by frame to create a flickering sense of anxiety.
For the stop-motion part, we sketched the characters on paper, then created some digital illustrations. We then realized 20 puppets we animated manually on a green backdrop using Dragon Frame. Those are flat cut-out puppets, painted with acrylics on acetate sheets.
We created the backgrounds using Photoshop. We used the same color palettes of the characters, and the apartment is a materialization of the protagonist's mind.
The idea was also to use color to accentuate between the shots taking place in reality, using a warmer undertone; and the world of illusion, using a colder one.
For compositing we used After Effects. We also realized 2D VFX in Harmony and then elevated them with composting.
These are the stages of the production (STORYBOARD - LAYOUT - KF ROUGH - COLOR - SHADOWS+VFX - COMPOSITING), and some backstage photos.
