This was my BA Final Project. The idea came from a trip in Yami. Yami was a small island near eastern Taiwan. It was full of natural life, and remains unspoiled. People live a simple life there. During the journey, I found our greed for a better life has brought the earth to ruin. For this reason, I tried to make people pay attention to the environment which has been damaged gradually by us. I produced this animation using black humor to awaken people to this situation.
Characters
There were two characters in this animation, a Doctor (Little Mean) and average persons. In the beginning, I drew human as my characters. As the story was out of touch with reality, I tried to create another style. I found a reference which was drawn by a French illustrator, Delphine Durand. She was good at creating cute and impressible monsters with a simple style of drawing. I created new characters in egg shapes, and then tried to make them simpler, step by step. Finally, I created two characters with black eyes which looked like balloons, and they didn’t have any joints.
The Story
The story is about the energy crisis. There was no energy in the world. Everyone tried hard to find new energy, such as pedal energy, wind energy, and solar energy, to solve the problem. Nevertheless, no one succeeded. Little Mean is a scientist, and he feels much responsibility for looking for the new energy. He collects garbage, waste water, exhaust gas, and even bombs (which symbolize war). Finally, he discovers that garbage could be stirred into energy. Little Mean drinks the garbage juice, and is then filled with electric power. Although people have got new energy, they don't change their attitude toward the energy crisis. People fight for garbage just like hungry monsters instead of cherishing it. The war against people's greed will never end.
Storyboard
Trailer
Feature
Title Little Mean | Description Hand-drawn
animation, May, 2008 | Method Flash, Hand-drawn, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere | Size NTSC
1440dpi(W)X1080dpi(H) 6 Min (12 images per minute) | Purpose This was my BA Final Project. I produced this 2D
animation using to awaken people to the damaged environment.
