Square Zero

SQUARE ZERO

Would a mid-life entrepreneur who dreams to start up his cyber security firm be successful? Listen to Jonnathan's story of how someone as smart and intelligent as him turned out to be naive in times of desperate moments.

BEHIND THE MAKING

"If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage"

STORY DEVELOPMENT (with spoiler alert)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

You have a character, Jonnathan, that's always been wanting to start his own cyber security firm. He's been longing for a bank loan for so long and he's tried contacting every bank there is for money. Calls after calls he keeps getting rejected. One day, his phone vibrates on the table. It's from an unregistered phone number. They ask Jonn if he's been inquiring for a bank loan for his new start-up. He agrees with them and the caller agrees to help him out. They have a conversation regarding the inquiry.

SCRIPT

Since the animation was going to be followed through a narrative treatment, a script was being prepared. The main objective of the script was to tell Jonnathan's story in a simple manner. The story was told from Jonn's past experience with a mysterious caller. Although he was venting, it was important that we didn't get too descriptive of any one particular event because that would deviate from the storytelling nature of the animation, yet at the same time make it open enough to allow the viewer to understand Jonn's side of the story.

ANIMATIC

The animatic was made to capture a sense of the final animation before I headed into production. If the story and the visual treatment of the film wouldn't be convincing through the animatic,  then there was no point in moving forward from there on.

SCRIPT STRUCTURE

The following script structure was laid out so as to understand which part of the narration would fit in with the scenes playing out. The script was written out in a manner that didn't take up too much screen time to bore the viewer with one particular scene.

VISUAL REFERENCES (IMAGES)

These very references I had taken inspiration from for the visual aesthetics of the film. Turns out, this style is called Film Noir.  The grainy textures, focus on the lighting, and the elements in the environment were assets I believed that were well suited to fit the nature of the story.

VISUAL REFERENCES (VIDEOS)

The references for the video style of the animation was much more broader. No single reference had everything I was looking for. A collective inspiration from all the videos mentioned below is what contributed to the story and visual style of the final film.

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