Director | Producer | CG Generalist
Award-winning 3D Animated Shortfilm
SJSU BFA 2023 Thesis Project
Directed by Julietta Zamora Lam
A 3D Animated Shortfilm in which a young girl learns to shed her guilt about her absent father.
Meet The Team
I was very grateful to have an amazing team of peers who so enthusiastically joined me in telling my story! Our team is made of a total of 34 brilliant students from San Jose State University's Animation/Illustration program.
Core Team
Our core team consisted of 10 BFA 2023 Seniors! These members were the guiding team that played a vital role throughout the development of the entire project.
Additional Team
We couldn't have completed this film without the amazing support of the underclassmen that volunteered to work on bringing this project to life! They provided their talents across various roles during the production-phase of development.
Project Development
Some more information about the process for developing our shortfilm!
A Personal Story
For my senior year of the SJSU Animation/Illustration program, I wanted to push myself to explore more of the 3D Medium by pitching a 3D Animated short film. At the time, I had solidified the technical aspects of what I wanted to explore, but I hadn't decided on a story for the project I wanted to develop.
I hesitated to make the story of the film something too personal to me, but I had the knawing feeling that I had to do it. I knew I had a story I wanted to tell, even if it would be difficult to be vulnerable about my experiences.
A Trace tells the story of a young girl with an absent father. This short film was heavily inspired by my personal experiences growing up with an absent father. Throughout much of my childhood and adolescence, I was burdened with conflicting feelings relating to my absent parent. I felt sad, self-concious, and guilty for my father's absence. I deeply longed for my father to be in my life. I missed my father, but at the same time, I was very angry towards him for leaving. I saw many depictions of child and parent relationships in the films I watched growing up, but seldom felt represented as a child with an absent parent.
I created this film with the hopes of representing children with absent parents in media, and in hopes of sending a message of self-love, healing, and letting go.
Inspirations & Goals
In our 5th year of the Animation/Illustration program at SJSU, students develop and pitch Thesis Projects to complete by the end of our senior year as a graduation requirement. I wanted to utilize this opportunity to explore more of the 3D Medium and animate using methods that we would otherwise not use throughout the program. We had 3 main goals for exploration with our film:
- Create and utilize a flat character and learn how to integrate it into a 3D Environment.
- Implement deformers into our character rig to see if we could combine character animation with deformer animation.
- Experiment with a stylized rendering style, the Toon Shader, which would create bold outlines on our models.
The below slides feature some key parts of our Thesis Project pitch, which visually showed our inspirations and some of our earliest proofs of concepts.
Flat Character exploration inspired from various media, including: Me and My Shadow (cancelled Dreamworks Film), Soul, and Paper Mario
We wanted to utilize stylized 3D Rendering which would feature bold outlines around the models.
One of our proofs included a small demonstration video which combined deformers onto a character rig.
Flat Character exploration inspired from various media, including: Me and My Shadow (cancelled Dreamworks Film), Soul, and Paper Mario
Visual Development
One of the most vital pre-production phases for creating our film involved designing our characters and environment! We created designs for two characters: The Daughter, Violeta, and The Father, represented by drawing. We also needed to establish the design for our environment, Violeta's Bedroom.
Below you can find a gallery showcasing some of the key Visual Development and Design that went into our film's development.
Concept Illustration sketches (Left) by Mak Archer. Final Design illustration (Right) by Julietta Lam.
Initial Concept sketches done by Julietta Lam.
Artwork by Ian Mahoney. Concept Illustrations and Orthographics created to capture the atmosphere of our environment for the film.
Concept Illustration sketches (Left) by Mak Archer. Final Design illustration (Right) by Julietta Lam.
Character Models
Once we had our character designs finalized, it was time for our 3D work to begin! Our amazing modeling team skillfully brought our character designs from 2D drawings to 3D models!
One of the core ideas we wanted to explore with A Trace included the use of a flat / planar model. The Father is a very unique CG character in that his model is completely flat!
Working with his model in the Rigging and Animation phases of production proved to be a unique challenge and a very fun learning experience for our team!
Violeta was modeled by Mak Archer!
The Father was modeled by Kimi Kawai!
Character Rigging
Before the animation process could begin, our Character Models had to be rigged!
Rigging is the process in which a static CG model is given the ability to be moved and manipulated by animators. First, Riggers insert bones and joints and attach them to the static model. Once all the bones have been properly added and things move as expected, controllers are added that allow Animators to move and make the characters act.
Rigging can be a very complex process that involves a lot of troubleshooting. We had an especially interesting time rigging our flat character, The Father!
Below you can watch demonstration videos that showcase the capabilities of our character rigs.
Violeta's character was rigged by Heather Lai!
The Father was rigged by Charles Mesa Cayobit!
Animation
The most time-consuming part of the production was, of course, animation!
Once the characters were ready to act, animators had to carefully craft each frame of the film. It was a labor of love that resulted in a film we were all proud of!
Before the film is rendered to a finish, animators often see their animation in a plain state. Here is a video that showcases the specific shots that I was able to animate and contribute to the film! You can see how the animation and background looks very plain before the lighting and rendering brings everything together the way you see in the final film!
Support A Trace on Social Media!
You can support our short film, A Trace, on various social media platforms!
Find links to all our social media platforms at our LinkTree:
https://linktr.ee/atraceshortfilm
You can find our Instagram Gallery below, which showcases the full development and progress of our film, including:
- Individual Team Introductions
- Pre-Production & Development Processes
- Film Completion
- Our Film Festival Circuit and Accomplishments
- Our Public Film Release!
We encourage you to share our film! Thank you for your support!
