Fruits Basket| Production Pack

 

"FRUITS BASKET"

フルバ

Story Synopsis

This story is about a classroom. There are several kids, laughing and joking around, as they gather together to play a game. The game is called “ Fruits Basket”.  In the game, each of the kids in the classroom is assigned a fruit, as they sit together in a circle. One by one, a kid in the middle of the circle calls out names of different fruits and the person assigned that fruit comes forward to join them. The main character is a boy named Ayu, who has been given the title of ‘ onigiri’, which means rice ball. The kids in the boy’s class purposely give him the title of rice ball, as he is a social outcast. Since the rice ball is not fruit, the boy keeps waiting for his name to be called so he can join the others, but his friends never call out his name and he just sits there, waiting. 

Mood Board

The film is actually made to follow the visual style of more monochromatic tones, with sone specks of red to lure in audiences.

Storyboard

Treatment and Execution

As mentioned previously, all the short film is in 2D animation, drawn by hand. Each and every single artwork and text seen on the screen is drawn and animated by me, on my iPad Pro, with an Apple Pencil (2nd generation). The software I used for all my drawings, is the one I generally use for all my other personal art and commissions as well, called Procreate. There are many aspects of the film’s production and execution that I would like to point out.

Color Scheme : The color scheme of the entire film throughout is black and white, overall monochromatic. As an

artist who usually works with more pastel and softer tones, this was somewhat challenging yet exciting

to do, and the most fun part was to add some parts of red so it makes the film look more striking and

eye-catching.

Artstyle: Unlike my usual artstyle which has more anime-like characters and features with distinct bodies,

expressions and faces, for this short film I decided to go against that and created characters that

are entirely non conventional to me. The characters in the film are imfac fruits and a riceball, who

appear to have less details and expressions on them.

Animation key frames: The animation style I  was going for is more “animatic” style of illustrating rather than

“animation”.  By “animatic”, what I basically mean is that I wanted to create a preliminary

version of a film, produced by drawing only successive sections of a storyboard and adding

a soundtrack. As the genre of our film is experimental and we have creative freedom to pick

how we produce and display our content. Therefore, this is why the film consists of more still

frames than smoother animations.

The music: Since we had our creative freedom with the choice of sound design, I opted for a monotonous

melody that is an extended creepy version of swan lake by Tchaikovsky. I believe it blends

in well with the awkward and lingering theme of the film, and goes well with the visuals. 

Equipment

I used an iPad Pro 2020 and Apple Pencil ( 2nd generation) to illustrate everything. These were drawn on Procreate, which is one of the leading illustration software for professional illustrators. The entire film is drawn and edited on my iPad.

The Process

The screenshots of the drawing process are as follows

Sound Design

The song used in this short film is a remix version of the original composition “ Swan Lake” by Tchaikovsky.  The swan lake theme used in the horror suspenseful music arrangement by it, uploaded and edited by Marc Ven Der Meulen on Youtube. This version of this song is copyright free.  The style and rhythm of this sound is very monotonous yet creepy at the same time, and I thought it would match well with the overall monochromatic display of the short film.

Difficulties Faced During the Process

The biggest difficulty I faced during the making of this film is the drawing and animating part. I have to say that even though I did try my best to fit my idea and storyboarding into the actual video, when it came to the actual process of illustrating and drawing, it did get a bit overwhelming. Since my art style basically consists of more human like characters and I am personally fond of drawing human like characters with proper facial expressions and poses, making this film was a challenge as I had to go against what I usually draw. Illustrating is always the most exhausting part of the process for me, much more than editing or researching. When it comes to that, I have to work 3 times more than my classmates, as I have constant drawing, from scratch, frame by frame, to work on-which requires a lot of effort and time and constant work. During the one week I was drawing for this project, it was hard for me to concentrate on other things hence I wasn't able to give time to my other courses properly as well. But I am glad I was able to do everything in time given the effort I put into it. Another major difficulty I faced was, the deadline of this film was during the Holy month of Ramadan. As Muslims, we are fasting the entire day throughout this month from dusk till dawn, so it was a bit harder to work during those days. 

Self Evaluation

Strength(s)

In my opinion, the most satisfactory part of the short film is the idea and research itself. Fruits Basket, is a very important story to me and I take it very close to my heart as it is something I personally relate to and have dealt with social alienation for more than half of my life. Due to the topic being very dear to me, I believe I was able to pull off a good storyboard and planning for the film, and I did a satisfactory job at depicting what I had in mind through the artworks. Since the work we had was experimental, I wanted to bring something to the screen that would not be too obvious to the first time viewer, and i believe I succeeded in making that kind of impact.

Another thing I would like to point out is that, I think I did a good job with the colorscheme of the film. The monochromatic tones really do bring justice to the idea, and the little hints of red throughout the film make it more appealing and eye catchy. 

Weakness(es)

I believe the biggest drawback for me was the time management. Since I had to get this done in under one week, I overestimated my abilities which led to a lot of pressure at the end moment, causing me to stress and overwork. Drawing constantly, from scratch, is an exhausting process in itself, so that ultimately led to a lot of overwork, since almost all the elements of the production are done solely by me, from planning, to illustrating and editing. However, this experience has also made me learn more so I wont repeat the same mistakes.

Another drawback of the film, I believe, is the sound design. Even though, At the time of creation I felt that a single instrumental would suit well with the theme, the final outcome was not that great. 

Audience Feedback

I collected feedback on my film from my classmates.