The Last Three Weeks of Student Accomplice

My senior project in college was a short animated film called "Student Accomplice." I helped out on a few on a few of our school's short films, so I know how stressful this time can be. I wanted to make a video showcasing the most hectic time of production-- the last three weeks.

This video is not intended to show you how an animated film is made. Instead, it offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the most hectic part of creating a student film.

The last few weeks of production were filled with uncertainty about whether the film would be completed on time. Honestly, we had no idea. Some parts of this video might seem overly dramatic, but I tried my best to capture the emotions we were experiencing at the time. It was tough. This was not a joyful period in our lives.

This video reflects my own perspective on the final three weeks of production. I did my best to respect the wishes of crew members who did not want to be on camera, which is why it might seem like there are so few people working on this film. Additionally, my role primarily involved lighting, rendering, and compositing, so this video doesn’t highlight the other departments as much.

I also want to clarify that this video might give the impression that we didn’t have a production schedule, but that’s not the case. We had an excellent schedule set up by our producer, Brielle. However, by the time this video was made, technical issues had set us so far behind that any sense of a "schedule" was thrown out the window. It was simply a mad scramble to finish by our deadline.

One last thing: remember how we rendered several shots in 720p? After the premiere, a small team of heroes stayed behind for several weeks to re-render all the shots in HD. I had to move out of state, so I wasn’t there to document it, but rest assured, in the final version of the short film we submitted to festivals, there are no shots rendered in 720p.