For my final animation project, I created a short film that captures the physical and emotional journey of my four years as a college runner, told through a continuous flipbook-style animation. The story follows a stick figure version of myself moving forward through time while encountering numerous injuries and illnesses that marked different phases of my collegiate career. I began the process by sketching ideas and mapping out key moments from each year, ranging from an Achilles injury and long-haul COVID in my freshman year to sinus surgery and the slow return to racing by senior year. Using Procreate, I animated the film frame by frame, with each frame consisting of 3 to 5 layers to capture movement, background shifts, and subtle physical changes in the character. A calendar in the top right corner signaled the changing seasons and years, helping ground the viewer in the timeline.
Due to the number of frames, the animation was divided into three separate Procreate files, which I later exported as MP4s and compiled in Adobe After Effects. There, I added a title, a concluding sequence, and used time-stretching effects to adjust pacing for specific segments. The entire piece is set to music, chosen to reflect the evolving emotional tone of the narrative, from the struggles of injury and isolation to the quiet triumph of perseverance. This project was both technically challenging and personally meaningful, allowing me to reflect on my resilience while developing new animation and storytelling skills.
Here is a example of one of the frames I created in procreate.
