BRIEF

Hello’ween is a 3D animated short film about a humanoid monster called Ween, who has social anxiety. It takes place on a Halloween night which the main character is planning to overcome his social anxiety, and you are witnessing the events that he is exposed to, from an outer perspective. People with social anxiety are unable and afraid to socialize and if they want to force themselves to socialize -like exposure therapy- to overcome their anxiety, they may not be able to, due to the outer elements. It is something that severely limits their lives. Furthermore, having social anxiety might lead them to feel alone, lose their hope, alcohol/drug abuse, and even suicide. Due to that, it is better to be treated as soon as possible.

RESEARCH

Looking for answers and solutions First, I researched articles and essays about social anxiety symptoms, causes, and treatments, and then I gathered some good, short 3D films, that I loved their visual style, in order to take as references. Disney movies, Clash of Clans, and Clash Royale shorts were my main references, and to be more specific, Clash of Clans’ “Lost & Crowned” short film.

Taking it to next step

Started my work process by drawing concept arts of my characters. Then, I decided to follow Dreamworks Animation Studios’ animation pipeline in order not to be lost through the process. I learned Blender (modeling, rigging, texturing), camera angles & lenses, and shot compositions from zero for my graduation project.

VIEW THE MOODBOARD

FUNCTION

“It’s just an animation. How can it be functional?”

Social anxiety is a common problem among today’s youth. That is why I wanted to point that problem out. The medium is a CGI animation that shows an instance from life in a stylized manner. Yes, the characters might be fantastic monsters but the situation is real that we all can easily experience in our daily life. The point here is, that if the people who are watching the animation have social anxiety, they can take this as an example and know that their condition is something treatable if the right conditions are met. And if they don’t have social anxiety, maybe they can understand how they feel and thus, show empathy towards the ones who are lonely and/or have social anxiety.

CONCEPT

Experiencing the story

Since everyone can enjoy stylized cartoony graphics and understand basic reactions without any language barrier (they are mostly the same in a lot of places but of course might be exceptions), here is an animation that gives its message without directly telling it but makes you witness an experience. Like some arthouse movies, with the ASMR-like sound design without any other interrupter, you can understand the emotions clearly.