To The Stars
PROJECT TYPE
Commissioned/Partnership
CLIENT
RTEjr
BROADCASTER/BROADCAST DATES
February 2020 the short was launched on RTEplayer, RTE2 and RTEjr, and we were delighted that it was screen daily at the EPIC Museum in Ireland.
SOFTWARE USED
Toonboom Harmony, Adobe Photoshop, adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere, Final Draft Scripting Software
Series Brief
In honour of HerStory Month 2020 (Feb – March) RTEjr joined with the Epic Museum to commission 5x animated shorts celebrating Irish female trailblazers. Children across Ireland were asked to vote for which 5 women they would like to see honoured.
We were commissioned to take on one of these animated shorts (we were also the only female lead studio and only short film with female creative leads by the way). We were given Dr Norah Patten as our subject. She was nominated by Clara with the following note:
“My heroine is Dr Norah Patten, from Ballina Mayo. I think she should be the subject of an RTÉ Junior animation show because she is very inspirational. At 11 years old she visited NASA, she decided after that trip she wanted to be an astronaut. Norah is doing everything possible to make this dream come true and to be the first Irish person in space. She studied engineering in college and is now a citizen scientist astronaut candidate with Project POSSUM, training to go to space. She is determined and hardworking, and she never gives up. Because of this I think she makes the ideal heroine for girls my age or any age. Her message is simple “dream your own dreams and shoot for the stars”. I know she will do it and hopefully I will follow in her footsteps and join her among the stars! Thanks for reading this, Clara.”
Dr Norah is amazing… she is so determined and focused to be the first Irish person ever in space. We were delighted with our Epic Woman!
“We took this short as an opportunity to give another female director her first credit – Gemma McGivern, our lead animator at the time, stepped up to the plate. It was also a first solo Producer credit for Sarah-Jane Kelly, who stepped up from her previous role as line producer in the studio. ”
What we did
Time was certainly tight when it came to producing the short – we were selected to take part in Autumn 2019 and the delivery deadline was in January 2020 so it was all hands on deck from day one!
Script
First of all, we needed to come up with a concept and a script. This is where Shannon George stepped in, and pitched the idea of telling Norah’s story through Clara’s eyes. It is based very much on Clara’s nomination letter, and of course we made sure to do our SPACE research to ensure that we were getting our facts right about Norah training programs…
Key designs
Adam’s initial designs and concepts for the shorts visuals helped to capture the overall look of the short very quickly and right off the bat. We took the key designs along to RTE offices with the team days after we were commissioned and they went down a storm! Head of Children’s and Young Peoples’ Programming at RTÉ Suzanne Kelly LOVED THEM and it really helped to kick off production on a positive note.
Voice casting
We cast the amazing Lucy O’Connell to voice the part of ‘Clara’ in the short film. Lucy has worked with us on many TV shows (most recently she was the voice of Binah in Critters TV, and she voiced Hugo for me and Sarah-Jane on our previous production, ‘Space Chickens in Space’.
With Shannon at the helm Voice Directing, Gemma McGivern and Sarah-Jane were there to have fun with Lucy and ensure we were hitting the right tone for the short film.
Storyboarding and animatic
Gemma McG did a great job translating the script into the storyboard, which became the blueprint for the production. She was assisted by Louise Fitzpatrick who helped us clean up the board before taking it through to production design and animation stages.
Production Designs
Here came the complicated part… given the SPACE theme, we were very ambitious in our approach to the camera moves and design. We wanted to give that feeling of size and space, so we designed long pans, long truck ins, etc. This is great in theory, but working with production backgrounds of that size and scale is technically very difficult, and it was certainly a technical challenge for us to do. But pushing boundaries is a key part of our core values so we didn’t pull back on the vision and figured out creative ways to make it work.
Rigs
Following our theme of pushing boundaries, Adam added an extra layer of complixity to the character rigs for the short, by building in a shadowing effect to each asset… the end result was amazing and something that we would love to continue to explore on a larger scale for future toonboom productions!
Animation
Our animation team had a ball playing with the seemingly simple paper cut out rigs – so different stylistically to what we had been doing all year with Critters, Ollie and Pins and Nettles. This textural paper cut out meant the animator had to scale back and think about how to make the movements work within its minimalistic parameters and of course, one of the hardest things to do is figure out how to make ‘weightlessness floating’ work. It goes against everything an animator is taught to do in making characters feel grounded!!
Compositing and rendering
Remember the technical difficulties we mention at production design stage… well this is where the impact takes place – working with big files, especially when they include significant camera moves, is always a headache for comping stage. But thankfully, the awareness of the design team and solutions put in place meant Adam was able to pull together the compositing and we were able to successfully output the short at the size and quality we aimed for… and of course we were beyond delighted to see it all come together visually!
Audio design
Once again, we called on our audio dream team for the final touches to this short film. Our go-to composer, Jonathan Casey, knocked the music out of the park once again with his beautiful, cinematic score that literally bought a tear to Gemma’s eye when she heard it. And superstar post-production house, Gorilla Post, added the final touches with the Sound Effects design and mixing.
Once the final picture and sound were complete, we delivered the final film to RTE, on time and on budget.
Final Picture
When we finally pulled it all together, we decided to do an in-house screening at Daily Madness HQ. We invited the nominator, Clara, and her mum along and as a surprise, we also invited her hero Dr Norah! The surprise was captured by and RTÉ videographer and it was the icing on the cake to see them enjoy their private viewing of the film together.