Icarus
Collaborative Short Film with Marien Singbo (lead animator) and Alex Hultin (illustrator)
My Tasks: Storyboard, Illustration, Animation
Time wasting is a habit that affects us all, and even more so since the era of digital media began. Our animation, “Icarus,” explores how social media systems and digital content can distort one’s sense of time. The story puts a galactical twist on the original Greek myth where a winged boy flies too close to the sun. It follows young Icarus as his new phone pulls him away from his drawing and towards a glowing sun of digital distractions. Through his story, this project aims to connect with youth and teenagers to raise their awareness of the dangers of digital media as a distracting force in their lives.
Process
Storyboard
I focused on conveying the action of each sequence through solely black and white color. This stage helped us to solidify the lighting and art style using a mainly achromatic color scheme. The storyboard served as a useful guide throughout our creation process, even though we made changes to the sequence as we went along.
Figures
I illustrated the five figures on the right; Alex, the five on the left. Although we used different mediums (Alex scanned pen and ink drawings, while I drew digitally), we made every effort to keep the figures' proportions and art style consistent.
Objects and Expressions
Alex illustrated the expressions (pen and ink), while I illustrated the objects (pencil). Our team chose to keep the assets mostly in traditional media, focusing the digital aspect on the animation process only. In this way, we sought to encourage youth to find their own balance between digital and non-digital forms of media.
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