Everything I Can See From Here Updates The 2D Animated Short

Everything I Can See From Here from The Line on Vimeo.

"Everything I Can See From Here" might make you reconsider how you’re spending your nights and weekends. Directed by Sam Taylor and Bjorn Aschim of the new production company, The Line, the short tells the story of a football game turned deadly when an unexpected player joins in. It was made independently over the course of two years. Luckily, the directors have a wide net of talented friends who helped see the film through. Their names and websites are listed on the team's vimeo site.

We caught up with folks at The Line to learn more.

What was the inspiration for the film's story?

The story was patched together from sketches and little bits of story ideas we'd talked about over the years. We wanted to do something that felt a bit like a Mike Leigh film, but then veered off in a much sillier direction. Something with real characters but a lot of cartoon anarchy.

Can you talk a bit more about how you achieved the film’s look? What technology did you use?

The film was made using a combination of Flash, Photoshop, After Effects, and Maya. We drew all the artwork directly into the computer, which saved time and allowed us to work collaboratively with our friends who were working remotely.

Making Everything I Can See From Here from The Line on Vimeo.

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Why the ultra tall aspect ratio?

A lot of the action in the film takes place along the vertical axis so it made sense to do it like this. It was a brainwave that came to us just as we were finishing the storyboards., which was annoying cause it meant we had to go back and storyboard the whole film again but I think it was worth it.The way people watch short films is changing. Whereas shorts used to be screened at festivals on cinema screens, or maybe occasionally on TV, they are now watched on devices of all shapes and sizes.

Despite making use of 3D software, your film has a distinctly 2D look. What do you think the future of 2D animation is? Especially considering Disney just laid off a big portion of their 2D animation force?

We are both huge fans of 2D feature animation, particularly Disney movies, and have spent the majority of our careers working on 2D projects using pencils and paper. Its always sad to hear about talented people getting laid off in animation, however I think its fairly clear now that traditional style 2D animation production is not too long for the world. Nevertheless, in our minds there has never been a more exciting time for the medium, as long as you're willing to take a more broad-minded approach to its production. As with many kinds of media, animation is no longer locked up in the ivory towers of the big studios. The tools and the knowledge are now in the hands of a much larger group of people. I think we'll see more diverse low-budget films being made in the future.

Working on anything now? Care to share your plans for the future?

We are just getting started with our new studio (The Line). We have a few experimental projects in the pipeline, and we'll see where they take us, but we're keeping our minds open to everything.

All photos courtesy of The Line.