Assessment for Rosi
Character design, turnaround, concept sketches and expression sheet.
Animation test link: https://vimeo.com/341512994
Character profile:
Evie is a middle-aged journalist living in an overpopulated metropolitan city, alone in her apartment filled with wilting plants and piling cardboard boxes. She has decided to move away, because this space and the surroundings remind her too much of her partner Adam, who is now drifting through deep space toward a potentially habitable planet on the outskirts of the solar system.
In the near future, climate change has affection billions of lives on Earth. The dire situation of the planet urges the search for a new home, and Adam, onboard with a team of elite astronauts, are trusted with this mission that will take them lightyears away from Earth and their beloved ones. Evie has admired Adam’s passion for space travel, coming from her own perspective of being a runaway kid to pursue dreams in big cities. Evie also understood what Adam’s dream meant since they first met, and she foresaw the day Adam embarked on a mission that would inevitably separate him from her. But she believed in fate and bond and took a leap of faith. In the years that followed, the happiness she shared with Adam only strengthened her love. But the day finally arrives, when she has to make her own sacrifice. While Adam drifts away into the space in his hypersleep, her life continues on Earth, alone.
Over the years of Adam’s absence, Evie has made effort to keep Adam updated of her life so when he wakes up the couple wouldn’t be so lost. But the lack of real connections frustrated her – with time and space between them, the lovers struggle to stay in touch. She faced difficulties in life, the death of their pet dog, turmoils at work and in her family, but Adam wasn’t there for her. She gradually grew emotionally distant, and insecure about what the future holds for the couple. She isn’t suffering financially or physically, but the loneliness and struggle about love bring her down. Music, plants and books, the things she once felt passionate about no longer interested her, and the city grew wearier and nastier day by day. She thought she could hold on, but knowing Adam might never return to her, now she just wants to leave, to move on, throwing away things that remind her of Adam, heal herself by burying the past behind her.
This scene takes place on an ordinary night, when Evie returns home from work after a long commute, exhausted and lost. She isn’t looking forward to another night of packing and sorting items. But as she casually turns on the night news, the broadcaster announces the scheduled touchdown of Adam’s lander. She starts to cry as memories rush back to her, both good and bad, as she listens to the news and her mind travels beyond the night sky.