Social Media has become an integral part of our lives and today we can’t imagine spending a day without it. While it keeps us connected and has proved to be a boon mostly during the pandemic, it has its own cons.
Considering the cons and its not-so-good effects on children, Canadian animator/director, Brent Forrest (now living in Japan) partnered with German director Tobias Schlage last year for an animated short film Like and Follow.
Till date, the thoughtful animated film has screened at 160 festivals in 80 countries and won 30 awards. This film was entirely independent, made by Forrest and Schlage with zero budget on evenings and weekends, with musical help from their friend and composer David Arcus.
The film was released online on 18 January on YouTube and the makers have big news coming in a couple of weeks. Animation Xpress had a candid chat with the animators/directors about the film. Read on:
What was your inspiration behind making Like & Follow – an important concept to harp on, in such a simple and yet striking way?
Schlage: Like and Follow was created with the idea of taking a timely topic that we felt underrepresented in the current media and addressing it in a fun way by creating a moving caricature, not so much making it about displaying what actually is but more about what people feel and experience.
Forrest: Tobi had the idea of this short where a giant smartphone was walking around with a boy on a leash like a dog – I just thought that image was so striking, and couldn’t believe it hadn’t already been done – and I thought we had to do this. We knew from the start it would resonate, but how to wrap up the story in a neat package, how to make it funny, that was the challenge.
Tell us about your journey as animators and storytellers?
Schlage: We both work in the animation industry in Tokyo and met in a studio here. We soon realized that we had something in common: we loved to make films. We love to tell stories. And we couldn’t stop doing it. When we realized we were so like-minded we decided to partner up and make films together. Like and Follow was our first project together but certainly not our last.
Forrest: Tobi and I are both compulsive filmmakers, and we work well together – we’ve got that give and take which is so crucial when creatives get together and try and make something happen.
What software did you use and how much time did it take to complete the project?
Both: We used Maya for modelling and animation and VRay to render. We spent one year making this film from start to finish – and I want to emphasize this was one year of after hours and weekends work – a lot of lost sleep.
Please take us through the process of animation in brief?
Both: I can’t speak for everyone but we have our own method and it starts with hammering the story down and the scenes before we even think about starting to animate. The first step is usually a script – but Like and Follow is so simple and so visual that we skipped straight to storyboards. The boards go through many variations as we try different things out and see what sticks. Around the same time we’re doing boards we also design our characters and props, which go through several interactions until we’re happy, and then these get modelled, shaded, rigged and saved as “assets”. The boards are cut to time and a rough music track called “scratch” music, which is a stand-in until the final music is scored. When that’s done, the ‘animatic’ We use that to guide how many scenes we have and exactly how long each scene is. Then we can start doing layout – which is building the bare bones animation scenes, setting the scene length, dropping in audio and pulling in the assets that are required. Then we were ready to animate. I’d prefer to not even get into rendering and comp as I still suffer from PTSD from our last experience with VRAY.
What are your upcoming projects?
Both: We have three new mini shorts coming starring the same characters. All we can say is that they’ll be out soon. We also have another short film which we’ve actually been working on for two years, but things are crazy right now with the development plans of Like and Follow.
How many festivals did the film appear/ feature in? How was the reaction of the audience?
Both: The film was screened at 160 festivals worldwide including Annecy, Giffoni and Siggraph Asia. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re thrilled due to that.
