The Story
Santiago is perusing the streets of Cartagena when another boy catches his attention. He watches, infatuated, as the boy, Camilo, looks around the bodega. Camilo seems worried, and desperately shows the shopkeeper a photo of his Grandmother holding a Lily which he is trying to find. Dejected, Camilo turns and attempts to put the photo in his back pocket, but it misses and falls to the ground. He gets a phone call from his mother stating that he needs to find the Lily before his Grandmother's birthday party. Santiago, now worried about Camilo’s state, rushes to pick up the photo and makes it his mission to find the flower Camilo was searching for.
Santiago attempts multiple times to find the flower but fails until finally he spots the flower growing on a high balcony. He tries to reach for the flowers and just as he manages to grab them, he falls to the ground. This crash attracts the attention of Camilo as he approaches and helps Santiago up. Santiago is able to finally give him the flower he worked so hard to retrieve and return Camilo’s photograph. Camilo is stunned at first but then touched at Santiago’s dedication, and invites Santiago to walk with him.
The Team
Carlos taborda, Roshel Amuruz, and Ashley Williams
Concept Art
By Emily Mai
Color Script
By Ollie Yao
Environments
By Roshel Amuruz
The set was created by Roshel Amuruz and is heavily influenced by the vibrant beautiful city of Cartagena, Colombia. Much time was spent gathering information and inspiration for all the building and props in the set based off of actual architecture within the town. With Covid making it difficult to travel, weeks of intensive online research of architecture, design, and culture, along with virtually traveling through google maps, has helped her create the perfect layout for our story.
Characters
By Carlos Taborda
Our characters was created by Carlos Taborda and throughout his character design process he focused on capturing Latin American authenticity within our protagonists. Not only did he model our characters but he was also in charge of rigging, cloth simulation, and groom. Carlos was able to capture delightful personalities into our characters and make them a perfect pair for our story.
Animation
By Ashley Williams
Although the pandemic made it hard to film animation references, that did not stop our amazing animator Ashley Williams from finding/making her own through online resources and creative thinking. She also created a team of undergrad animators to help animate shots faster and she kept up and engaged with them to make sure everything looks consistent. Her technical skills and resourcefulness has enabled her to bring our characters and this story to life.
Compositing
Team Effort
Our final challenge was figuring out how to composite and color grade the whole film. We wanted to capture a warm uplifting feeling throughout the whole story and made sure all of our scenes included rays of sunlight and golden hour lighting. Not only did it make the film feel bright and fun but also gave a sense of hope for the main character to follow through in his story. While many lgbtq+ stories revolve around tough life experiences, we wanted to express the innocent positive side of them as well which is why compositing was just as important as the rest of the pipeline.
