Happy new year - animated video card

[Víctor Paredes]

Hi, I wish everyone a happy new year.
Here's the video card I work with Smith Micro. It's the last of a series of nine we have made during this two years.
I take advantage to say thanks to Fahim, Michi and all the Smith Micro team for this opportunity, it has been very fun to work with them.


and the (very rough) animatic:




Direction, Animation and Composition: Víctor Paredes
Script: Víctor Paredes - Pablo Paredes
Art Direction & Design: Mario Quiñones
Music & Sound Design: Pedro Santa Cruz

[Danimal]

What a great video! It has such a charm to it, you can't help but smile at the end. VERY well done!

The animatic is interesting as well, always fun to see the rough idea that led to the finished product.

Happy New Year to you as well!

[heyvern]

Awesome as usual!

So glad you had that last scene with the fireworks relatively safe and having their own party. I was worried about that. I tend to go too far with anthropomorphism and I have some questions. Were they safe or was that some sort of fireworks "afterlife"? If they were "safe" are they then required to do it again and again?

(I had similar questions regarding that documentary "Toy Story". Based on my own memories of my toys it had me very concerned that I didn't treat them with the proper care they deserved. )


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p.s. My biz partner skyped me today and said happy new year! I didn't know what he was talking about and asked what year it was and did I oversleep. He said it was 2648 and I had been frozen for 634 years. So I asked was he frozen as well or was he cloned to help me adjust to life in the future? No answer yet. He said he will call back at lunch.

Happy 2648!!

Or... whatever year it is now! Are you all clones or were you frozen too? Is this some kind of fake internet preserved for nostalgia? Must... turn... off... my brain...

[drumlug13]

Love it! What did you use to make the animatic? I would love to see AS with an animatic or storyboard feature

[Víctor Paredes]

Thanks, guys.

Love it! What did you use to make the animatic? I would love to see AS with an animatic or storyboard feature

I just used another software for drawing and put everything inside a switch in AS.

So glad you had that last scene with the fireworks relatively safe and having their own party. I was worried about that. I tend to go too far with anthropomorphism and I have some questions. Were they safe or was that some sort of fireworks "afterlife"? If they were "safe" are they then required to do it again and again?
(I had similar questions regarding that documentary "Toy Story". Based on my own memories of my toys it had me very concerned that I didn't treat them with the proper care they deserved. ).

Most of the stories for this videos are created by my brother and me. We have a nice relationship, good feedback and always try to look that kind of details too.
It was hard to get that party at the end. After a long brainstorming, we had several ideas and the story of an afraid firework in between of them. But we couldn't just kill them! so we discarded this story several times, trying to get a happier one. Finally we got the party idea and it just closed the video perfectly for us. Don't worry, all they are all alive, waiting for the next year

The animatic is interesting as well, always fun to see the rough idea that led to the finished product.

I'm glad you find this interesting. It is always fun to me to see how a video evolute from the first idea until the end. For example, in the animatic you can see the party is in a beach. Since it's summer here, it was logic to put them there... Then we realized it had no sense in your hemisphere. There are some other details, like the burning wick detonating the firework. In the animatic, the character had some kind of parachute rope to explode (and arms and legs), but we changed that on the road. In the original designs there was also a "female" firework at the end, with long eyelashes and slim waist. I decided to have no males and females, just indeterminate fireworks. The idea of having just one woman and a lot of men never liked me.

(I had similar questions regarding that documentary "Toy Story". Based on my own memories of my toys it had me very concerned that I didn't treat them with the proper care they deserved. )

Toy story always haunts us. In the Book Day videocard, we made some kind of Books Toy story, this video card is a Fireworks Toy Story and the Music day video maybe is the planets (and minor-planets) Toy story... we just can't escape from that