Treasure All Animation Behind the Scenes

The Treasure All animation is an experimental, vertical format film about growing up with autism, through the eyes and words of Peyton Goddard. Here are a few of the tasks that went into creating this moving short film.

Process

Treasure All Animation poster
Treasure All
  1. The animation process began with meetings between the Director L. V. O’Connell, Producer Elaine Dill, and the Goddards. A brief for the project was created and filming was done with Peyton.
  2. Pre-production consisted of researching, writing the script, and creating storyboards. After storyboards were refined character and background design began.
  3. Production fell into two phases. The first phase required casting two actresses (Juniper and Laurel Davidson) to voice the narration parts and recording the audio (thanks to Frank Forth ). The second phase involved rigging and animating the final character designs and placing them in their environments.
  4. Post production included editing the animation together, adding sound (effects and

Experimental Vertical Format

The vertical format allowed us to play with the space in a new way. The main character is shown quite small at times to show how the world came down around her. We also wanted a sense of falling into darkness, to capture the isolation, and the sensation of being trapped that she must have felt when she lost her ability to communicate.

Peyton’s Voice

Peyton’s autism makes it difficult for her to speak. She uses a device that allows her to type in order to communicate. Her written word is quite unusual, unique and poetic. Her ‘voice’ in this format gives us an insight into her thought process and the depth of the world inside her mind. That voice was used as the basis for the script.

Recording audio for Treasure All animation
Director L. V. O’Connell (left) recording audio with voice talent, Juniper and Laurel Davidson, and Frank Forth. Photo by Jessica Davidson

When creating the short film we wanted to depict her early life and the heartbreaking challenges of a child, and the change that came to her later in life. To help with this distinction, we were able to use two lovely young voice actors, Juniper Davidson and Laurel Davidson, together with the sound work from Frank Forth of Forth Dimensions Video Productions, they were able to translate Peyton’s words into a wonderful soundtrack.

Treasure All Animation Character Design

Treasure All Animation character design young Peyton
Young Peyton

The short film features two character designs. The first is the main character and narrator as a young girl. We wanted a young girl that reflected Peyton’s age and innocence. We also wanted a hand-drawn and imperfect appearance to compliment her imperfect movements.

I am Intelligent Cover
I am Intelligent by Peyton Goddard

Photographs of Peyton as a child were used as inspiration for the young character design.

For the second character, Peyton as an adult we stayed with a 2D character but a more polished design. She is shown larger on the screen, with more confidence, due to her ability to communicate via a device and advocate for herself.

Treasure All character design - adult Peyton

The artwork for each character was first sketched by hand and refined. The art work was then scanned and transferred to Adobe Illustrator, and further refined. The young Peyton was rigged and animated with Adobe Character Animator, while the adult character was animated in After Effects.


O’Connell Design is a consultancy offering creative services in Animation, Motion Graphics, and Visual Effects for film and television.

Animation Price Guide

This animation price guide discusses a few factors when determining the cost of an animation project: concept, style/complexity, character(s) and specifications. For a basic 30 second animation pricing seems to start at $2,000 USD and go up from there depending on these factors.

  • Concept: the an abstract idea or general notion of what the message or story the animation needs to tell. This phase can take more or less time depending on how clearly the client’s initial idea is flushed out.
  • Animation Visual Style and the Medium required: 2D Animation, for example can be done using traditional hand drawing (think old Disney films) or vectors in After Effects or others. A 3D animation might use Maya or Cinema4D or other 3D software to create a 3 dimensional space or place an animated item into a real life scene filmed with a camera.
  • Character(s): the character is the person/creature that the audience is most likely to connect with and requires special attention on their creation and rigging.
  • Specifications: no animation price guide would be complete without discussing the final animation’s specifications – this referrers to the frames per second, dimensions (1920×1080, 2K, 4K,…), duration (30 seconds, 2 hours,…) and the quality of the end product (television, advertising, or film).

More Information to Aid Your Animation Price Guide Choices

Below are sample animation pricing information from other animation websites.

Pricing from Get Wright On It

(They have a fun price guide. It’s a fun interactive webpage.)

  • $2162-3149 For 32 seconds, motion graphics, paper cut-out, film quality (character based $7500 and up)
  • $2000-25000/min motion graphics, paper cut-out depending on production quality (television, advertising, or film)

Costs from Whiteboard Animation

  • $2800/min (90 sec. min.) = Entry level whiteboard style
  • $3800/min standard whiteboard introducing color accents, seamless scene transitions, and more consistent hand-drawing
  • $5500/min Whiteboard animation adding fuller color, basic character/accent animation, and multiple edit rounds.
  • $8000/min Whiteboard animation with deeper color, more sophisticated design/visual effects, and more detailed character/accent animation.

Estimates from How Much Does Animated Video Cost?

“The average cost for a 60 second explainer video is $7,972. (That’s around €6,500 or £5,700 for our international readers, at the time of writing.)”

How Much Does it Cost to Product Animation – and Why? – Pigeon

$6000-10000

  • length: 60 seconds,
  • style: multi-coloured flat design in cutout technique,
  • two characters,
  • music, voiceover, and sound effects included,
  • copyright to cover Internet, internal use, and private conferences.

Animation Costs from Full Rotation Design & Animation

  • £1750+/min. Simple 2D motion graphics, can be as simple as animated typography and simple graphics like this example.
  • £2500 – 3500/min 2D Motion graphics with 3D elements
  • £3000 – £3500/min. 2D Animated Explainer Videos with Character Animation
  • £3500 – £5000/min. Stylised 3D Animated Explainer Videos
  • £3000 to £10,000/min. High quality realistic 3D animation
  • £4000 to £10,000/min. 3D Character or Creature animation ( £200 – 300 per second )

Movie Animation Cost per Second… Just for fun

  • Tangled $49,059 per second (68 animators)
  • Toy Story 3 (2010) $36,639 per second (66 animators)
  • Coraline (2009) $11,690 per second (40 animators)