The Slip

Inspiration

Inspiration for the story comes from my years at boarding school in England in the 80's. It was a fun filled time full of adventure and imagination. A lot of the characters and locations are based on very real people and places.

With regards the medium, I've always been a fan of animation and have often flirted around the edges but despite being in the general field (I worked at Aardman Animations and various other media companies) I have never animated professionally. I have loved stop motion since the late 70's as I'm a big fan of Ray Harryhausen. I basically grew up watching Clash of the Titans and all the Sinbad films on repeat until the VHS broke.

How we built it

'The Slip' was built over a 6 months using Midjourney, Kling, Nanobanana, a lot of Photoshop and Premiere Pro for Post Production.

Challenges we ran into

Apart from the numerous audio issues (from working with real human voiceovers artists) the biggest challenge was consistancy, which, as AI artists we all know can be a problem ... well 6 months ago it was, not so much now. Having the 'look and feel' of the world and characters consistant throughout the entire production was tricky, but very important.

Also, too much time was wasted in the early days working on shots that I was never overly happy with to begin with, only to then have my doubts confirmed and binning the whole shot. You can get lost in time when seeking perfection.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The Slip won Audience Favourite Award in the recent Curious Refuge AI Animation Contest.

It was also one of few films to earn a 'featured' badge in the recent Kling NextGen contest putting us in the top 20 out of 4700 films (we worked it out). Look, I'll take what I can get ;-)

What we learned

If I could talk to myself back before I started this I would have the following advice:

Have a VERY GOOD filing system and file naming convention from the outset.

Get the starting frame right as quick as possible. Don't muck around with shots that just aren't working as you'll waste a lot of time. Step back and come at the shot from a different angle, metaphorically and often literally speaking. If it's not happening, then leave it, move on and come back to it later.

What's next for The Slip

We are working on a pilot for an AImated series based on The Slip of which an extended version will be the Pilot for season 1. I have inflated the cast to around 18 actors ... more fool me ... Actually having a table read via zoom this weekend. I'm currently pretending I have a real studio and that this is a real thing.

Built With

• adobe
• aiarty
• kling
• midjourney
• nanobana
• photoshop
• premierepro
• topaz