Work Process

The story of Carmilla was an unmissable mark during my exploration of the gothic horror genre. Falling into these dark worlds through pure curiosity, I read Dracula, The Monk, Frankenstein, all these classic stories, until I found Carmilla. Quickly it became one of favourites, especially compared to other vampire stories. So in honour of this vampiress, I decided to make a short tribute video.

The video itself was kept in a very limited color palette: red, white and black, fitting well in their stark contrast and associated symbolism. But before delving deeper into the visual aspect of the project I created a sound layout so I could time the visual beats better. The audio was made by finding sounds and looping them, whilst trying to keep it short, since everything would need to be animated. I wanted to make something that sounded a bit pained but still romantic enough.

After that part was done I got to animate everything. I started by creating a storyboard and timing it to my sound. Then the hard work of refining and animating began. This part took the longest by far but nevertheless I followed the vision from my storyboard and drew everything to the best of my abilities until I was at the point where I could compile everything. This again took longer than expected, since this is the step where small errors usually become visible. Be it a frame too much or too little, a beat that doesn’t hit or a pose that is wrong. In the end I managed to fix my issues and complete the project.

Looking back, I would change a few things. I would really nail down the art style as there are some inconsistencies in my work that nag me a bit and I would spend much more time looking at reference than I did. But then again I wouldn’t have to worry about a time limit and for that reason I’m still quite proud of what I managed to accomplish.