Maru Pilla

Survivors – Concept to Film

Character Design

As a character centric film, my first step was conceptualizing the characters. I started first with the parents. Though they are the secondary main characters, their concepts were crucial to the development of our main character Sky. While I intended for Sky’s biological connection to her two moms to be ambiguous, leaving room for the possibility that she was adopted, her design would still be dependent on the people who clothe her, patch her up, and protect her. Once I developed her parents, it became more clear to me how a child of two hardened survivors might dress. Further, Sky’s bubbly personality lead me to more round and playful designs.

For PuppyShark, concept design was largely based on playing with where dog and shark could meet. Since PuppyShark is meant to be the perfect guard dog, and a parents last choice for their kids best friend, the often misunderstood, sweet and sturdy pitbull breed became the perfect base for his design.

Setting Design

Setting Design for this film was dependent on the characters and the world building, leading me to explore the setting through style frames that focused on the interaction between potential characters and mutant animals through their surroundings.

Using PuppyShark as the base of what the mutant animals in this world could look like, I explored the situations that humans and mutants could find themselves in together, and what that insinuates about the rest of the world around them. Many of my style frames became inspiration for the script and storyboards, and even appeared as still frames in the film!

Prop Design

Once the script was written, I was able to compile a list of all the props that would appear in the film and who they belonged to.

Background Design

With the script and boards done, it was time to finalize the look of the film. A select few wide shots came first, so that I could create the general look, ensure that the style was consistent, and tweak minor details to support the worldbuilding of the story. First was the layout phase, which focused on the fundimental design, shape language, and spacing. After the layouts felt fleshed out, I moved on to incorperating the lineart style and coloring, completing the background design and allowing me to move on to the less conceptually essential background shots that would appear in the film.