SLEEPLESS
About
SLEEPLESS is a 2D animated black-and-white film that is inspired by the style of Japanese animated music videos. The film’s animation ties in very closely with the tempo of the song, loosely diving into an internal conflict of self that is set within the mind space of the protagonist, BONNY.
The film adopts an approach following the nature of Japanese animated MVs, where the plot denounces any semblance of rationality and instead emphasizes on the craft of the animation within the artwork instead.
The film aims to capture the alluring compositional potential of black and white aesthetics, while fleshing out the progression of the antagonism of self in a jarring, graphic-novel art style in an ambiguous dreamscape environment.
Project Background
My love for dark themes and action based animated videos largely influenced the art direction of SLEEPLESS. Growing up, I was very inspired by Asian contemporary art styles and had always wanted to animate a music video of my own.
The opportunity presented itself when I came across a Malaysian indie rock band, Math Class. They had just released a debut single titled Sleepless, which had all the components I was hoping for on the musical aspect of an animated MV. It was catchy, surreal and very dreamlike, effusing all the qualities I wanted to express and amplify in an animation. I had been exposed to a variety of animated music videos at this point of my life, having related to their artistic dispositions in a way that is clearly apparent in my style of drawing, and thus I concluded that Math Class’ Sleepless had exactly what I needed to complement my Final Year Project.
I had planned for SLEEPLESS to be a 2D animation from the very beginning. Considering the full duration of the soundtrack that I would be animating to was 4 minutes long, the decision to go with a medium that I was confident in would ultimately prove to be less labor intensive and offer a smoother workflow, with a much lower margin for technical error as well.
Establishing the 2D medium also opened a lot of doors for me, as I was able to execute the shot-to-shot visual transitions that were imperative to the visual integrity of SLEEPLESS. I settled on using Procreate, RoughAnimator and PremierePro for pre-production, production and post production accordingly, which provided an ease of use and mind as I was familiar with these softwares and I figured this would help the speed of progression for my film greatly.
