CATCH THE SUNRISE

2D Animated Short Film / 2024

A workaholic, fed up with how their workplace treats them, quits their job in order to take their life back into their own hands. To celebrate, they decide to race through an overcrowded city at the crack of dawn to do the one thing that they can control in the moment; see the sunrise.

The project stemmed from many ideas and memories dear to my heart, from my attachment to the idea of a Solarpunk world, to my partner and I listening to the song Optical Illusion (featured in this film) by The Soul one evening on the ground floor of my university's campus. To truly flesh out the world of the film, a plethora of primary research into Sri Lankan culture, toxic work cycles, and Solarpunk itself needed to be conducted. The development phase for this film lasted 5 Months.

In production, I focused on three key factors of the animation; Character Acting, Visual Spectacle and Composition. The first related mainly to character animation, the second manifested itself in homages to classic anime like AKIRA and impact sequences reminiscent of ONE PIECE, while the third focused on the harmony between background art and animation.