Metamorphosis

We all have our cocoons to break out of. We all see the light at the end of our tunnels, thirsting for its warmth. Such is the way of life, of metamorphosis…

Storyboard

Summary

Metamorphosis is a story of one boy’s journey of friendship with a friend from an unlikely place. When the boy’s father enters his dingy room with a caterpillar, the boy is indifferent toward the curious critter. The caterpillar’s repeated tresspasses over his computer annoys him, cursing the caterpillar for intruding on his shut-in lifestyle. However, he realises that the caterpillar was merely after the leaves in his untouched bowl of food, and his anger turns to compassion as he feeds the hungry critter. Leaf by leaf, the boy grows closer to the caterpillar, till one day it forms a cocoon and hatches into a butterfly. The boy is now forced to let it go, and opens his window, flooding his room and life with light, as he watches the butterfly flutter into the sky. He then closes his computer and leaves his room, having evolved in his own way.

The Process

The hardest part of the project was coming up with the story. We wanted a story with a simple premise, but with emotional impact through the use of simple and minimalist art. Initially, the story was about a young boy playing with a caterpillar and watching it evolve, but it felt too plain. So we decided to make the main character a shut-in gamer who is initially indifferent to the caterpillar. Over time, he would eventually come to tolerate its presence, and even become fond of it. As the caterpillar evolves into a cocoon and finally into a butterfly, the boy also evolves in his own way - a Metamorphosis of sorts.

The hostel rooms were used as a reference for the boy’s room in the story, and helped build a strong impression of a shut-in character who was glued to his computer. We took photographs of our friends hunched over a computer as reference for the boy. Using this, we drew the storyboard panels using a graphics tablet on Krita, an open source alternative to Photoshop. The storyboard panels were then compiled and edited using Openshot Video Editor.

Here are some frames rendered using the Bresenham algorithm.