With this trailer I wanted to capture what I love about animation; the diversity and beauty of the different styles, techniques and worlds. In my personal work I tend to use multi-media styles of animation so this was something I wanted to celebrate even further by getting animators with very different styles to work together.
 

The 3D backgrounds are made using Maya, with them I wanted to express my own voice and that of the new generation of 3D experimental animators who are using the medium in new and interesting ways. I roughly animated the movement of the characters in the animatic and then handed them over to my friend and 2D powerhouse Miriam Fox who really brought them to life. I wanted a traditional, ‘squashy-stretchy’ style of 2D animation to bring some exaggeration and fun to the film.

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Mai Vu (a stop motion animator) and Grace Shepherd (production designer) came into the process early and together created the big fish who swallows the boys underwater. The body and detail of the fish were made entirely from paper woven together and then painted with UV paint, then animated under a blacklight to bring out the neon colours. We were inspired by the bioluminescence of deep sea fish and tried to recreate this with the UV paint.
 

I wanted to make sure there was a sense of wonder at the end. As the boys are lifted up by a pillar they are surrounded by a swirl of 2D animated shapes and creatures. I wanted to animate these in a way that made them feel like the doodles I would do at school had come to life. I used weaving loops in this section to create an almost hypnotic effect.