top of page

THE MAKING
OF
ZEZE & MERCEDES



This is the documentation of the pre-production of our graduation film "Zeze & Mercedes". A 2D digitally animated, 8 minute-long film about two kids friendship, their separation and how they deal with it in an internal stage. 

made by

Başak Kırıcı ( Director) , Corina Bojan (VFX Animator), Ming Mei-Ting Stotijn (Art Director),
Lok Thong Siu (Character Animator), Teodora Simon (Concept Artists)

CD_11.png


The story is about  a boy called Zeze (8), paying a peculiar visit to his friend Mercedes (8). Hesitant to explain the reason behind his short visit, Mercedes challenges Zeze to a race over the carpet on the condition that he needs to stay if he loses and listen to his reasons if he wins. Throughout the game, they race together with their imaginary friends through life-threating obstacles till Mercedes finds out about the bitter truth behind her friend's visit.

CD.png

The film came to be, over a period of 3 years, as I met new people, lost old friendships, reconciled and quarrelled, witnessed reunions and divorces, and pondered how to function in all these relationship dynamics.
I wanted to make a film about the departure of my very first friend and coming to terms with it. I wanted to tell my friend how I feel about their presence and absence in my life, the feelings of abandonment, longing, happiness, frustration, comfort, helplessness, nostalgia and gratefulness.

I wanted to portray the 'philia' between two friends and struggles that comes with it.


THE PRE-PRODUCTION

Early Concept Art of Zeze & Mercedes, İzmir 2020 

These are the early concept art and character designs of Zeze and Mercedes, in the beginning they had a different narrative than the final one. The story took place in the forest nearby their village and there were only one imaginary character that they came across. The kid's game shaped around this one character but as the production team grew, I was able to include more characters in the story. In the end we had a whole parade of imaginary characters in various shapes and sizes.
 


Zeze & Mercedes Character Design Studies, Publication of the  Progress 


Early Zeze & Mercedes Animation Tests, Izmir 2020

ezgif-3-bf1fc5bedf.gif
ezgif-3-02e2faf1ef.gif
ezgif-3-d083e231d8.gif


THE PRODUCTION

We started the production on May with the help of the 1st years from animation department in WdKA. They gave us a boost up in the beginning phase and thanks to them we managed covered the half of the animation of the film. This is one of the roughly animated style frames
to see how the animation would look like in the 
end. Through the production we used this test as a reference for the rest of the scenes.

ezgif-5-d8f8c73539.gif


Style Frames for the Production

brush size test_4.jpg
brush size test_3 (1).jpg
brush size test_5.jpg
brush size test_6.jpg
unknown.jpg
Concept Art_House_Exterior_07_Character Layover.png


Thumbnails for the Production Sheet, Grayscale Compositions of the Scenes

4.jpg
1.jpg
2.jpg
3.jpg
7.jpg
8.jpg
5.jpg
6.jpg
Character LineUp_2.png


Proportion Comparison Sheet for the Characters


Rough Animated Scenes from the Film

S3_s03_Start Running.                                                               S3_s04_Carpet Morphing

ezgif-3-c60ae180d8.gif
ezgif-3-28112cecb2.gif
ezgif-3-c27405bc79.gif
ezgif-3-a7e3b1bfe7.gif



S3_s07_Mercedes Grab                                                               S3_s09_Charon Morphed Kids



S4_s24_Caterpillar Plunge                                                            S4_s25_Hand Reach

ezgif-3-3846e365f1.gif
ezgif-3-9f4bb7f2b8.gif
bottom of page