▶ The Making of Oranguerrilla

This archived content does not reflect my current skills

This is the Making Of video for Oranguerrilla, my student film for the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. I really wanted to make this backstage video as it brings together the countless steps I went through to make my film.
Roughly, I spent 1600 hours of work on the project from concept art to the final edit, spread over two and a half years.

Direct link: YouTube
Italian version here: [italiano]

Pencils are my tool and I studied traditional animation, but I’m also my own kind of 2D Technical Director and I had to push my skills to new heights.
Some research was necessary to define a workflow able to take my drawings on paper to a fully rendered animation, with light and shadows, shaded objects, special effects and camera moves. I don’t use Macs anymore and luckily there’s a good selection of free and open source software able to help animators and filmmakers. This is the breakdown of the workflow:

All these software are free to download from their project websites:
blender.org
gimp.org
pencil2d.org

If I could go back in time I would spend more work on the construction of the characters and I’d draw them day and night for weeks. I found out very early that practice is time well spent. Also, doing warm-up drawings at the beginning of the animation session ensures a good control over gestures and line quality.

The complete short is 2’15” (excluding credits).
I’ve been asked how much would ideally cost a short like this if it were commissioned. The answer is: roughly $36,000, all-inclusive!

Thanks to all the instructors and friends who gave me useful suggestions.
I really hope this is the last film I do on my own.

These are some random screengrabs from various production stages.

Here you can find some screenshots of Oranguerrilla.

5 thoughts on “▶ The Making of Oranguerrilla”

  1. Very, very impressive Turi. I watch many “making ofs” and this is one of the best I’ve seen. Thank you for taking the time to show us your workflow.

    I’m a filmmaker (and an Academy of Art graduate) and I’m happy to see “new” talent like this entering the field. I also appreciate the quality of this making of.

    Best of luck to you. I’m forwarding this to friends who are animators, illustrators and filmmakers.

    Best, Morgan

  2. Thank you very much.
    The animation looks good and the concept is also nice.
    I found lots of useful tips in your making video, I bet the film would be very inspiring too.

  3. I am not even in the film industry but I must say, brilliant use of the open source software and the movie looks brilliant, best of luck to you, I am sure you will make it big in movies soon.

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