My name is Karen aka Korny, and I’m the Lead Animator at Sunnymoon Project.
One of the main challenges that our animation team faces is having to provide animations within a tight deadline, and to make sure the production process goes smoothly and efficiently.
Now, while animation is in fact very time-consuming and detail oriented, a lot of time we would have to take shortcuts to speed up the process, while also ensuring good quality results.
I would like to share the plan I implemented during Beirut Animation Nights x FACILA’s animation challenge, where we were assigned to create a short film based on the Lebanese urban legend Abu Kees, a man said to lurk in the forests at night and who kidnaps disobedient kids in his bags. The challenge only lasted 5 days, so I had to make sure that making this animation took the least time possible.
A lot of shortcuts were taken, and a lot of phases were eliminated, making the animation take 3 days. And it was all done single-handedly!
Pre-Production
Traditionally in animation, it is the preproduction phase that takes the most time to brainstorm, to plan, and to sketch. Hence, a lot of time had to be cut from this phase itself. I ended up mixing all major planning stages in one go (storyboard, sketches, thumbnail sketching, story writing, etc.)
The storyboard in general included all of these, so while planning the frames, I merely drew stickman-shaped characters, with general silhouettes, just to know which character is being shown in each scene, as well as blocky shapes for the scenery and props. The story was also written quickly – starting with a general umbrella idea and immediately fleshing out the scenes while storyboarding
When it came to the character designs, I focused on shape, language and just my imagination. How did I imagine the urban legend Abu Kees? Abu Kees was this big, bulky and shadowy man, but very round (to show a silly side!) while the rowdy boy was small and pointed to show that he is one of the disobedient children.
I even had to include the BAN mascot, Alphonse Batata, fabulously posing one of his bags!
To quickly think of an idea for the story I again tapped inside – what did that urban legend mean to me? What did my child self actually think of him? I remembered that as a kid, I thought his idea was rather silly, and did he never run out of bags? There is also some silly innuendo and references to the Lebanese tendency of parents to always look for “a good bag” which has to look neat, or just from a good brand! So I thought, what if Abu Kees has that small issue? What if he also has to look for a good bag (which for some reason, is ALWAYS hidden under mattresses…)?
Turning to my childhood references and relying on my imagination made me come up with a story for the animation in no time!
Production
Now that the pre-production phase was done, I had to start animating. I used Procreate Dreams for that.
Since time was of the essence, I had to merge animation phases. So instead of going Sketch>animatic>rough>keyframes>inbetween>cleanup>coloring, I mixed them all to make it sketch >keyframes and inbetweens> coloring.
Even the keyframes and inbetween were immediately drawn as clean lineart, which is where I made HEAVY use of the blocky characters and very simple shapes.
The shading was done by placing gradients and airbrush using a grainy brush, to give a sense of depth and texture without taking too much time. Even the backgrounds were all drawn on almost one layer and filled using the bucket tool, as well as heavy usage of gradients, overlays, and the selection tool to shade just a little bit.
I made use of using move and scale keyframes to do panning, camera movements, parallax, and extra motions.
Post-Production
The animations were then exported – each scene individually, and thrown inside After Effects – which is where I took the time to add a lot of adjustments, overlays, color corrections, glow, and even extra camera movements, to ensure it had that “finished” look. Some razzle-dazzle effects were included! (like the fireflies)
The sound effects and music were all found copyright-free online. Guess what? I even had to record some sounds myself, like those grumpy sounds Abu Kees makes, by lowering my pitch a lot! I had to quickly record some plastic bag sounds to give some diversity in the main thing that represents the whole animation.
It was all done in record time and submitted in good time too! The Abu Kees short-film received 2 laurels from BANXFACILA as well as LFFC.
Overall, it was so enjoyable to push myself against the ticking clock and produce something both satisfying and award-worthy! Even though my limits were stretched to their max, I would not hesitate to jump right into such a challenge again.
Enjoy the animation here – https://www.instagram.com/reel/DN2sXoo3k-k/?igsh=Y3B6Y216eHIxdWk3
Sunnymoon Project
Sunnymoon Project is a women-led mobile game animation and design studio in Lebanon. Our studio stands out for its creative philosophy – no AI to generate creative content. What you get is a blend of human creativity, storytelling, and technical precision for all visual development services.
Our services include 2D/3D animation, character design, environment art, UI/UX, logo design, and more. We have created casual games as portfolio pieces to showcase the abovementioned skills – like MoodiMe and Sweet Stacks. The services are cost-effective and collaborative, respecting NDAs and following ethical practices. Interested to know more? Please write to us at info@sunnymoonproject.com or visit https://sunnymoonproject.com/.