Toymaker Short Film

A toymaker reads picture books to her five-year-old daughter. Since she can't afford to take her daughter to a carnival like the ones in the picture book, she starts building a miniature model for her daughter that gets more and more elaborate and eventually threatens their relationship.

I directed this film as part of the Advanced Animation Production class at Brown in fall of 2016. The team consisted of me, 7 other CG artists, 2 sound artists, a producer, a composer, and 4 pre-production artists.

Shown in:

  • Athens Animfest
  • Animated Arizona Film Festival
  • PA Indie Shorts Film Festival
  • Kids First! Film and Video Festival
  • Los Angeles International Children's Film Festival
  • Green Bay Film Festival

Software: Maya, mental ray

Production


responsible for lighting (night in workroom)

responsible for lighting (night in bedroom)

responsible for lighting (day in bedroom)

responsible for character modeling

responsible for skin, hair, eye, jeans shading

responsible for skin, hair, eye shading

Pre-production

Aesthetically, we wanted to convey a certain do-it-yourself attitude of repurposing objects; the designs needed to look like they evolved out of necessity and were repaired to exist past their intended lifespan.


workroom concept

workroom props - the toymaker's desk, chair, and lamp

bedroom concept

island concept - a miniature model the toymaker builds for her daughter

island / toy props - toys repurposed from recycled everday materials

toymaker (Maria) orthographic

colorscript