Must Have Finished Something Right?

Must Have Done Something Right is done! Unlike my last animation(Directionless - Entry Level Job) there is quite a story behind the making of this one.

I'll start by saying where the orignal idea for the animation came from. I was waking around New York City in May 2011 and the song came on my ipod. I knew I wanted to make a video for it the instant I heard it but had no real concept as to what would happen in it. This happens pretty often with songs.

I decided to lift the main guy character from a TV Show pilot I had made( Scott, who appears in this video). I designed the girl from scratch, though she is loosely based on the girl that appears in the songs actual music video.

So I then made this brief animation to feel out the characters,

So then I started producing the movie in May 2011. At the rate I was going the release date was set for June 20th, or something to that extent. Sadly, I was going to become busy with other things and would not be able to made that date, and would have to put down the animation for awhile so I quickly produced Mellow Brick Road to release an animation near the date I wanted to really Must've Done Something Right.

I didn't pick up Must've Done Something Right again until October or so. I did some blog posts on it but if you read them careful you'll notice I never really made a dent in the overal movies progress(it remained at 1/4 done).

I did a little bit of animation but was still too busy with other things to take it on entirely. I finished the Directionless movie and decided to finish Must've Done Something Right as well. So I set a due date, January 30th, for myself and went to work. And look at the date, finished it right on time!

Since there was such a long gap in production (from May - October - January) there were some aspects of the movie I did not like. Some animation was removed/replaced. And I became more selective about the paper texture. Here is a shot of something that didn't make it to the final cut,

The movie also worked as an spiritual sequel to a movie that I never finished and as a re-imagining to a movie I never made.

Back in 2008 I wanted to make a video about a guy trying to talk to a girl but things kept getting in the way called "Talk to Her". It also involved a sequence where they were happy being together. I never got a working storyboard for it (meaning I had trouble writing the movie). Because this was a movie with a deadline I took my attention away from the idea and I made Nuts instead. I do see "Must Have Done Something Right" as a revisit to this concept. A mildy interest tidbit, I used the girls design from "Talk to Her" in Directionless - Anime Intro. She's the girl in the blue dress.

I had started a music video for the song " Island " by the Starting Line. It was about a couple drifting apart. The guy wanted to go sailing and go on adventures while the girl wanted to have a steady job. Partially inspired by the film Revolutionary Road, it was a very interesting concept to me. I finished the storyboard but I found myself bored with the video itself. I see "Must Have Done Something Right" as a movie in the same vein as this one. A prequel to this couple in island, showing how they started out, or a sequel showing them staying together.

I decided not to re-use their character designs, but I did decide to keep the color scheme the same. Their darker tones represented the darker/sadder story. While in Must Have Done Something Right their bright colors represent the happy emotions!