| Shatter: Project Development |

Before starting to work on portrait collage we did other preparation and exercises that can be seen below, to help get an idea for our projects:

Start of project: Initial sketches of main character:

I decided to make animation around panic attack experienced by my friend. So design of the character was made according to his appearance. I wanted to make character a bit stylized, so it would give my friend a bit of privacy. I also spoke to them about video and got permission, as well as information about their experience in detail for animation project.

I wanted to make it without using colour to speed up the process as well as to give it a look of the past.

Storyboards:

Animation tells story about my friend, who while experiencing life problems, family problems, shut himself in apartment for days, before having panic attack, after which he decided to face his problems. At the start we see him being happy with friends, and then showing him at home, contrasting with original happy image. Mask in the work symbolizes trapping, bottling up emotions and wearing a cheerful expression to not worry people around him. Voice in the background is mine, and was mine in the original situation, since I was present on the phone call as the emotional breakdown happened. I wanted to express the break down, by literally shattering mask in pieces, like his real mask shattered when it happened.

As for mask breaking in pieces I decided to use stop motion paper cutouts. Film stop motion scenes on green screen and edit it out to put on top of animation.

First try of technique: