This is my surreal, 2D-animated entry to the Anijam portion of the 16th Annual TAIS Animation Showcase. After watching the 1984 Marv Newland short Anijam while designing a remake of the International Rocketship logo for Classic Logo Remake Party 6!, I felt curious to know more about these collaborative animation projects that fall under the same “Anijam” label. The one that the Toronto Animated Image Society hosts annually caught my interest the most, and I immediate jumped to the opportunity to offer a slice of my style to the showcase. The theme for the 2022 edition was “Endless Loop”, so I went ahead and created my 10-second entry as a form of paying tribute to one of After Effects’ most useful shortcuts: the LoopOut expression!
Primarily, though, this concept was an excuse to play around with my group of young adult animation nerd OCs that I’ve been developing since the first quarter of 2022. They consist of Sage Braxton (the afro-headed one), his cousin Marv (the dude on the laptop), and his best friends Kris Stylus (the blue-haired girl), Ronnie Rocket (the girl holding up a VHS), Vanzo Sun (the guy reading an animation instruction book), Milton Stripes (the tiger observing an old cartoon film reel), and Ezekiel “Egg” Jones (who’s wearing an eggplant hat).
A huge thanks go out to Myfanwy Ashmore and her fellow TAIS staff members for accepting my submission, and for screening it on October 13th, 2022 for many folks to enjoy. Also, I must thank those for sending me congratulations when I first announced my inclusion. For sure I’ll be doing more stuff with Sage and his friends in the future!
BEHIND-THE-SCENES STUFF
Although it was drawn a little before I came up with the idea for my Anijam entry, this surreal lineart of Sage and friends entitled “Nerdganism” served as a basis for how the visuals would be executed. I was partially influenced by the Adult Swim\ bumpers’ overall weird aesthetic.This is the main character lineup sheet I used for the project, essentially a revision of the one I shared in April 2022. “Nerdiness Guaranteed!” was more or less a working title for the general concept involving this specific set of original characters, but not the working title for the Anijam entry itself.Much like The Grover Guys, LoopOut Nerds! was a fully storyboard-driven animation that started off as a one-page written premise, before getting turned into a total of six board pages.Another storyboard page displaying the long, looping pan of crazy character actions.Krita was the program where I drew everything, including the character designs, storyboards, and animation layers. Here’s a work-in-progress shot of Sage doodling in his sketchbook.Background design of the basement couch where Sage and friends are lounging at the beginning. Note the calendar on the left reading “Feb. 2” (a.k.a. Groundhog Day, a reference to the Bill Murray movie), and the clock on the right saying “4:20” (quick foreshadowing of the trippy stuff that’ll shortly occur).For Scene 2, each of the characters’ goofy motions was planned out through rough thumbnails (a step that I’m guilty of usually neglecting when making my personal animations). These are the sketches for Milton’s head spin.
A taste of the complex After Effect composition tasks I needed to do. In this screenshot, all seven characters (each of them are comps themselves) are together in a single horizontal comp that’ll be turned into a looping pan in another.
D.J. Berry 