Dunn: An Eastrail 177 Story
Yet another animation that I made in my own time, I wanted to make an animation which not only utilises tracing paper and my own light board, but which also a fan fiction on my favourite film trilogy ever, the 'Eastrail 177' trilogy, consisting of the films Unbreakable, Split, and Glass. The narrative I've made here takes place after Unbreakable, where David Dunn goes on another quest to sort out another criminal, this would also introduce the idea of Joseph getting involved in researching crime cases, which he was shown to do in Glass, so if anything, this film introduces that idea of David and his son Joseph working together before Glass even occurs (yet again I did state that it is up to you whether you would to consider this animation cannon or not). The animation starts off with a text crawl, along with the use of music which came from the movies, and the scenes involve David encounter the criminal he was looking for, as David touches the criminal to see if it was him that performed the crime, then David decks him and his weapon, bringing the criminal down while the police arrive, and David then makes his way, as he would be avoiding the police like he did in Glass.
This was made using After Effects, as shown by creating this sequence of physically drawn frames, followed by appliance of audio, text techniques, visual raining effects and minor flashes in the end to represent police lights. This animation is quite limited considered to my other work, but this is another step for me in terms of creating stop motion-based content, so I believe I have managed to create a decent stop motion made up drawn tracing paper along with some minor additional effects and sounds to enhance it. This is also one of those pieces of work where I wanted to replicate something well, and in this case, it was to make my drawn David Dunn look like the real David Dunn as much as possible. I am one of those drawers who mainly draws from scratch while struggling to draw what is in front of me, but for this animation, I really took my time, and I believe I have made a David Dunn asset which the fans I hope recognise. As I write this, I have been talking to many people via networking, and they have all stated that if I am going for a 2D direction, then professional drawing is important, especially for when referencing something, and this was certainly a chance to further expand my drawing skills, requiring strong references on what David Dunn looks
While I think this animation too could have been longer, and there are some spotted inconsistencies in terms of the actions and the background, I still consider it successful, being able to generate my own interpretation of Unbreakble's identity, while creating a stop motion animation which works fine considering I am not very experienced in this type of animation, but I would like to do this approach one day, even have a go with my light board again, but I will only do that if I have a simple enough idea just like this animation, I do like to present animations which consist of more complex visuals like the merge of 2D and 3D as shown in other animations.
Overall, the animation is a mixed bag, but After Effects has been used to make this animation grander (where I also thought I succeeded in) such as the raining effects and some editing areas like the flashback sequence and the way David Dunn crushes the pistol while a breaking sound is used, I still find satisfying to this day. I'm glad to make this animation to reverence my favourite trilogy ever, and I would like to make more work based on this trilogy, I may have pioneered fan fictions within this film too via animation. if you haven't watched it yet, I would heavily recommend it, if you fancy content which is deep, fresh, and full of satisfying scenes built up logically yet satisfyingly, then it would be for you.
This one took a week to make, it was made a week after the first year of university finished. Due to COVID-19, we spent the last few months at home to complete all the first-year projects, and we were able to download all the Adobe softwares we need thanks to my university’s participation with Adobe. Sadly, after the first year of university was done, none of us could keep any of the free Adobe softwares until the second year rolled around, hence why some of the animations I made in my own time were all short, and I wasn't able to make more without the softwares. Yes, I could have paid to have more time with the softwares to make more content, but I did want to spend time planning the content I want to pitch in the future, consisting of sketches and scripts, so I still made my summer very useful in terms of industry practise and preparation. This animation above thankfully was short enough to use the remaining time of this free use of the Adobe softwares. To add more history, all my prier projects were made thanks to me buying a software for a month (and if another month was required, then I can buy the software for a month again). The second year of university however is where this has all changed, we were given free access to the softwares again, which will also end as the second-year ends.
Side note: Only Facebook has a version of this film with sound on, hence why this film is silent elsewhere.