Case study: Working with Triumph to create a Poetry Film for Apples & Snakes
This page is to give you a sense of what working together might be like.
Triumph reached out to me after finding one of my videos on LinkedIn, to commission my help with a poetry film.
Hi Josh,
My name is Triumph. I am a writer looking for a freelancer to animate a 1 minute poem I've written. Are you available in the next month to work on something like this? I would need this completed by January 3rd ideally. I have a few ideas for the images and the voice-over that I can send over.
I saw your Introvert/Extrovert animation and was very impressed by your talent. If interested, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or even by email: **********
Triumph
Hi Triumph,
This sounds really interesting, I love working on poetry films. Would you be able to send over the ideas for the images and voice-over?
and then I can get a sense of the scope
best
Josh
Here is the film we made together:
Triumph was inspired by the styles of some other poetry films she had seen, which gave us a clear style guide to work with: digital, hand-drawn with a limited colour palette.
Reference images:
Costing
I agreed to do an affordable flat rate within Triumph's budget range. (£300-600)
Her style guide was very clear, the script was already written and she provided music and voice over, and the film only needed to be 1 minute long.
We agreed on a timeline of 1-2 weeks, and we split the payment with 50% up front and 50% on delivery.
Pre-Production
This might take a couple of days to get a first draft and then if you have tweaks you want to make, that might take a couple more days. If I had a full week to devote fully to it, I could do this in maybe 2-3 days but I'll need to stretch it out, to balance another project I’m working on, so within 2 weeks.
Fortunately, the style that you have picked is very easy to replicate and because it has a hand drawn style, it’s easy to do roughly. This moves the preproduction phase along very quickly!
These were the images that mentally stood out to me:
Production
Everything went smoothly, I sent off the first draft and then we added some tweaks and amendments:
Hi Josh,
This looks great! The transitions are sick.
The sound effects and fire alarm sound waves are a nice touch. The train/bus fronts look good, I am happy to keep them. Here are the rest of my thoughts:
- Can you change the caption to "You can't hurt me if I run first " (the caption says fast)
- When the two paths are presented, can you add boulders/tumble weeds/bare trees to the dangerous path and then a thick forest to the safe path
- Can you add some hazard signs ⚠️ to the poisonous path (that also eventually get erased)
- Can you zoom in more to on the two paths? Maybe by 30%
- At around 40 seconds, 'of course' needs a space in between
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Thank you for all of your work so far, I am impressed!
Skills used:
Ideation, Illustration, Animation, Editing, Sound design & Project Management.
