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Synopsis: A testicular cancer survivor shares his story to raise awareness and provide reassurance.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

In March 2020, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. I was immediately treated and fortunate to be given a non-seminoma stage 1 procedure. And then, the W.H.O. declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, and I was isolated from friends and relatives. I struggled to accept that I was a cancer patient but was afraid to share my story.
 
When I slowly began opening up, a few close friends and relatives encouraged my immediate reaction. It made me realise that some men, particularly from a Black Asian Minority and Ethnic background, still have insecurities about their masculinity, preventing them from seeking support and medical advice, causing male patients to go inward rather than seeking help.
 
The film’s message conveys that showing vulnerability is a great strength, creating a sense of reassurance for men not to be afraid to act and to ask for help.

CONCEPT ART

The art style of the film was inspired by looking at campaign infomercial films that tended to have motion graphics animation, which efficiently conveyed statistics while giving excellent appeal that promoted chosen campaigns.

I researched 2D motion graphics and vector art illustrative animation that could get the core message for the film. From there, the character designer, Adrianna Michalska, and background artist, Alina Coaca, designed various concepts of how the film would look like. 

BG Act 1 Scene 5
Praveen- Initial Sketch 5
BG Act 1 Scene 2
BG Act 2 Scene 2
BG Act 1 Scene 3
BG Act 2 Scene 1
Praveen- Initial Sketch 1

GRAPHIC DESIGN

The font of the film's title is an original font, titled "Orchre". The graphic designer, Imy Rowlinson, created a font that needed to convey the seriousness of the disease, as well as not scare the audience when they see the word "cancer". 

CHARACTER AND BACKGROUND SHEETS

With the style for the character design, Adrianna created a style that had a motion design appeal that complimented the art style of the backgrounds. In terms of the background, Alina created a palette that represented the emotions of each scene.

RIGGING

For the animation style, I looked at certain infomercial films that created simple and thought-provoking animation. But I also wanted to create a cinematic appeal that conveyed the character's mood and expression. The animation pipeline was created using Toon Boom, which was able to convey that cinematic appeal.

Inside The Rig

Inside The Rig
Inside the Rig- Praveen Rig
01:08
Inside the Rig- Mother Rig
01:31
Inside the Rig- Hand Prop Rig
00:37

ANIMATION

I constructed the animation pipeline in a manner similar to a professional structure.  I instructed the animators that the animation must emulate professional animated infomercial films, where the animation is sometimes animated in twos. I trained the animators in Toon Boom by creating a workshop, showing the technique and animation styles that professionals use. The video below shows a comparison from animatic to animation show

COMPOSITION

The concept art and background designs inspired the composition for the film. In each scene, the character's lighting and shadow had to contrast with the background and illustrate the emotional moments. The compositing was created in After Effects, which allowed more experimentation with lighting and pushing the camera in certain scenes to create a three-dimensional look. Below are three chosen scenes from the film that demonstrate examples of the pipeline stage from animation to composition.

MUSIC

A Cancer Story - Film ScoreWez Allard
00:00 / 06:36

The music of the film was composed by Wez Allard. When I presented the idea of the film, I emphasised the music should convey the film’s main message, implementing that the score should be cinematic, which would appeal to the audience and cancer patients. We both discussed certain composers from Thomas Newman to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, From these influences, Wez created a score that could convey the film's emotional journey of the character, from denial to acceptance but uplifted the feeling of the emotional journey that my family and I went through.

The sound was created by Ben Viney. In our discussion, we commented how certain sounds would better emphasise the character's feelings, and felt that in certain scenes sound would be a better replacement to illustrate scenes without it being narrated. Both Ben and Wez contributed to the story, bringing both elements that create a better narrative of music and sound to the animation scenes.

My thanks to the crew and the lecturers of the MA Animation course at Salford University for allowing me the opportunity to create this personal film. To my family for their love and tremendous support during such a dark time. This film is dedicated to those whom my family have lost to cancer and the cancer survivors.

If you have symptoms that lead to any type of cancer, please do not hesitate to act. Contact your GP at your nearest NHS Medical Centre and get yourself checked. My hope is that the film brings reassurance to testicular cancer patients and survivors. For more information about testicular cancer, please click on the link below.

© Praveen Zacharias
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