CJC Labs

February 2, 2010

The idea of Twelve A.M. originally came to us in the early part of October 2008. We wanted to do a holiday-themed project, and since Halloween was right around the corner, we gave ourselves the “green light” to go for it.

The idea didn’t work out too well, as we were unable to give it the proper attention and demand that was required to have it done in time. Halloween quickly came and went, and we made little to no progress. Although we considered it a small project (and we figured that it could be done quickly and easily), that was definitely not the case.

 

 

THE STORY

When developing the story, our initial ideas took us in many different directions. We knew that it was going to be Halloween themed, but didn’t know exactly what we were aiming for. We didn’t want to take an idea too far because we didn’t want to end up with a feature length film, but at the same time we didn’t want to cut ourselves short. Twelve A.M. was our very first scary-themed project, so it was an exciting opportunity to try something new. By all means, it could have come out a lot better in every aspect if we gave it more time.

 

 

The original idea began on the basis of paranoia. We wanted to portray the experience of being alone in the dark, and having your mind develop these scary “what if” scenarios that ultimately freak you out.

 

 

THE PROTAGONIST

 

 

The main character of the story is Tyler; a young boy with a big imagination. He decided to stay up late and watch a spooktacular spook-a-thon consisting of old horror films, such as the classic “The Return of the Vampire.” This night in particular was a little different though. At the stroke of midnight, something strange happened…

 

 

THE ART STYLE

As the story continued to change, Tyler changed with it. Originally he was much older, and his art style was completely different.

 

 

When we reached the final design, Tyler’s new look paved the way for everything else. From lamps, to beds, to couches, to trees, to bushes, to windows – the world was built around him. The art style in general was inspired by Tim Burton and some of his animated films, such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “The Corpse Bride,” as well as Henry Selick’s “Coraline.”

 

 

 

We wanted to capture that unique look and feel, but at the same time, we wanted to stay within our own guidelines. The character design of Tyler himself became an inspiration, and he set the guidelines for us. Ultimately, the visuals came out satisfactory, but there were some things that we were unable to achieve. Maybe next time!

 

 

There was one problem in particular that had us stumped for months. We wanted this short to look very dark, but the brightness differed on different displays (CRT, TV, LCD, ect.). We tried to cater to all displays, and that put us in quite a predicament. We figured that it HAD to be possible! This puzzling situation was one of the main reasons why the short was eventually tossed on the back burner (aside from the time restraints).

 

 

We came back to it a few months later, and figured that we would just proceed using our normal methods, then try to find a nice balance afterwards. We accomplished this by adding a dark-blue adjustable tint with an ‘overlay blend mode’ on top of all scenes. At first, we were trying to make it darker by using a black blend, but we quickly learned that blue worked much better. It gave off the illusion of darkness without making everything too dark.

THE WHITE WINDOWS

 

 

The white windows may come off as confusing or as a mistake, but it was all well intended. We used the white windows to differentiate the real world from his dream world. In some way, we wanted to indicate that Tyler was dreaming, and that the world was no longer real.

THE CREATURE

 

 

When it came time for the creature design, there was a particular essence that we were hoping to obtain. At this point, the story was finalized, the storyboard was in development, and we knew exactly what would be happening. We just needed to find the perfect candidate (or creature) to fit the role. This is where we sought the help of the artist Candice Hayes, who managed to create the perfect creature for us.

 

 

She managed to take our half-baked thoughts, and transform them into something that was not only spot on to what we were trying to express, but something that was fun to work with! It fit quite nicely into Tyler’s world (and his closet). We are very grateful for Candice’s help, and hope to collaborate with her again in the near future. Fun stuff!

You’ll be able to check out more of her work soon. We’ll keep you posted.

THE SOUNDS OF TWELVE A.M.

 

 

This project marked the first time that we were able to use our set of sound effects from Sony Pictures, which we had acquired sometime in May of 2009.

 

 

 

This was well after Twelve A.M. was tossed in the backburner. We were excited to have some better quality sounds to work with, and we no longer had to worry about clearing up whatever sounds we could find/make. When we first browsed through the new sounds, the very first thing that we thought was to use them in a spooky-themed kind of project. So with Twelve A.M. already started, it was a no brainer.

 

 

At the time of Post Production, we were in a big hurry to get the project done, so we really didn’t get to spend much time in the audio department.

THE TITLE

We literally came up with the title while in the latter part of post production. Originally we called it, “What’s In Your Closet?” (Based off of Capital One’s slogan, “what’s in your wallet?”), but figured that it gave away too much. We were later going to go with the title, “Paranoia” which had a nice ring to it, but didn’t apply to our story anymore. We eventually ended up forgetting about it… And then we were in post saying, “hey… we still need a title…” which was of course followed by a long silence… Ultimately someone said “Twelve A.M.?” and we went with that.

 

 

Immediately after coming up with the official title, we started work on the intro. Our minds instantly went to the cover for “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

 

 

The large moon and the ever-so-memorable curly cliff that Jack Skellington stood on were key inspirations to our title. A few hours later, we had our opening!

Ultimately we finished the project on Monday night, November 1^st 2009. We missed our deadline by nearly 24 hours, but we were still happy to have gotten it done. The 5-minute short eventually went on to earn us our second consecutive “Animation of the Month” award at toonlifeonline’s ToonTube, which we are very proud of.

 

Although it was a very bumpy ride to completion, we were happy with the results. It wasn’t our best work, but the project did take us through some new obstacles in which we learned some things that will definitely help us on future projects.

~Chris