Travel by feet, a 2D animated short film

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Travel by feet is a 2D animated short film by Khris Cembe. A black comedy co-written along with his traveling mate Laura Aguado, a proposal that puts together a brilliant graphic design and recognizable elements from thriller genre.

Approximate 10 min.

SYNOPSIS

A night rail journey. A car full of passengers. An undesirable fellow inside your compartment. What to do when it's not possible neither sleep nor scape?

THE STORY

It is not easy to get the greatest means when you go on your own and it’s usual to sacrify a lot of comforts to achieve those ones. One of the most habitual things is to reduce as traveling expenses as possible and traveling by train is one of the best solutions when there are long distances to cover.

Taking this fact as a premise, we've built a story where an annonymous traveler confronts a nightmare trip in which everything starts to conspire against him, specially his unpleasant compartment mate which he has to run along with hundreds of kilometers.

From then on, a black-dyed desperation spiral begins to wrap around our protagonist and it all leads to an surprising final turn, making both him and audience reflect on our tolerance mechanisms against frustration, and the truth is that no matter how difficult some situations might be, since we can always take a deep breath, calm down and keep our chin up.

STORYTELLING

One of the most prominent betting TRAVEL BY FEET is that it is a short brief, almost without dialogue, tells all that counts, which is something.

The loneliness of the protagonist is well underlined in this little verbal communication, certainly naturalist then when any of us has to take a travel of this kind, surrounded by strangers.

WHO AM I? WHY AM I HERE?

Since I left my home at the age of 22 at Cangas (Pontevedra) and moved to Barcelona, I've been working in the fantastic animation world till today and keep on it.

I fell into Nikodemo Animation, where I spent 4 years and grew with my workmates making productions such as the Crisis Carnívora, the first animation flash movie for cinema. We made also Huérfanos Electrónicos a webseries, which we all enjoyed a lot due to the comedy contents we added on every episode. And, of course, Cálico Electrónico, a big hit on the internet that went beyond boundaries.

Afterwards, we decided to break new ground with friends and workmates Santi and Sebas. We would expect different challenges. So we set up Postoma Studio, where we realized and co-produced the award-winning short-film Birdboy, directed by Pedro Rivero and Alberto Vázquez, winner of Goya Award 2012 for Best Spanish Animated Short-Film, besides it got into preselected for the*84th Academy Awards (longlist)* and fought for the Best Animated Short-Film in Annecy 2011 (prestigious animation festival). On his passing worldwide, Birdboy has achieved more than 35 international awards and more than 200 official selections all over the world.

Birdboy short film here

My work in this short film, visual development artist and animator. I painted all the backgrounds, colouring, lighting and textured so as to create the dismal atmosphere that this hard story demanded.

After working for different companies and people for many years, I do feel like making a product 100% mine and want to watch it finished.

And now, with Travel by feet, I make my debut as director as well as taking over almost the entire production on my own, from first idea to finished. Except only post-production, soundtrack and FX.

By the moment, the short-movie is quite advanced , there’s a final script, story board, animatics, pre-design and concepts. Too an animated teaser, which you can watch here, accompanied by a couple of ‘making of’, 1 and 2.

WHY CROWDFUNDING?

Nowadays, in mine country it’s a hard work to produce an animated short film with several people around as well as holding a low budget.

There used to be some kind of subventions but cut off a year ago and there would be only one place left that supported short films in this country (Yes, they’ve been hitting straight to the culture).

By now, we hold on and we’ll keep on struggling to come out high quality animation productions with much effort and sacrifice.

WHAT’S MY AIM? ?

Our idea is to lead the same road as our previous short film Birdboy, this is, to appear on festivals worldwide and, if possible, amass prizes to invest in next projects in order to keep making cinema.

The aim of this short film is not only to spread it and show it all over but also to make us a place in cinema world and, in the future, be able to do what we really like to do. Tell stories and make them real.

AND IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR SUPPORT …

Thanks to Crowfunding independent producers can build their projects. So, I’d like to count on your support to realize them.

Join us in our trip!. Make your reservation, choose your ticket and get in the train!

There are different tickets with rewards that really deserve it

In all of them I will be forever grateful!

NEW REWARD 15 Euros, get the *OFFICIAL POSTER *:

Reward with TICKET PAINTED:

an original portrait style 'Travel by feet' painted in gouache A3.

HOW DO WE SPEND THE TAKINGS?

Not everyone knows, but drawing cartoons is rather expensive.

In our present project, Travel by feet, we are lowering costs as I produce it almost on my own. If we reach the budget we asked for, I will be able to change this unipersonal-work and rely on someone else to produce the short film.

And down here I sum up how we will invest the takings:

-Pay the helping crew (animator or artist)

-Pay post-production.

-Pay soundtrack. I’d do it by whistles, but I’m horrible at it.

-Pay rewards production, you may find it hard to believe but finally it becomes real money.

-Finally, the part I belong to myself to survive during the months of production, dedicated to this project, this is so.

If takings overtake the budget, not even think it’s for me, No! I will invest it in distributing the short film, as it is a very expensive part of the project and fairly important to spread the short film internationally. I guess we all will be glad and cheerful when it is present in most festivals as possible.

We can together lead this train to its destination, but the train won’t …. Till it is full.

You can even follow the travel on Facebook, Twitter, instagram @khriscembe, and on the production blog (reward)

See you inside the train! Travellers!