Breaking news: It is time to JAM!
After two years of pandemic, self isolation and having to convert their event to an online format for two years, Global Game Jam 2023 was back on planet earth as a live event. Being former game jammers ourselves, RANDO BANDO was so happy with the news that we wanted to go all in in this teaser to keep up with the excitement.
The guiding theme of the 2023 game jam was "Roots" and we wanted to try something different to tease global game jammers during the starting keynote. Characters from the teaser would be interacting with variations of the scenes - dropping hints here and there about the theme - during some sort of commercial breaks between the keynote sessions.
Storytime.
Our main idea was representing GGJ as a yearly astronomical and universal event where you can't help but get curious to peek at what is happening inside. The result of all this excitement is a parade of creators and creatures, from diverse backgrounds all around the universe, preparing to participate in the event.
Sketching all our ideas in the storyboard and animatic steps helps us to have an overall look of the film and to make any major changes before diving deep into design and animation.
Game Jamming with character!
Gathering everything to share here on Behance we could not believe that more than 20 original characters were created for this teaser, without counting the ones we ended up not using.
We wanted variety and to expand what we have already done for GGJ in the past, trying our best to create something new and escape from clichés of what you would expect of a gaming event teaser.
Fist we started sketching what came up to mind related to game making or just letting ideas go crazy. Even though we wanted to use them all, we had to put our casting caps on and select the best actors, so we could have enough time to animate all the scenes we needed.
A fun fact: You might know that we always name our characters. There is a flamboyant crow we called "Alceu Valença" the entire time during production, don't ask us why, but is a tribute to a brazilian singer who has a similar style in hats. See if you can spot him.
Background designs.
Our vision was of a busy city, brimming with urban life with everyone moving towards the Global Game Jam. We wanted the backgrounds to be stylish and to contrast with the overall flat look of characters.
We tried to push ourselves to stylization, keeping each element simple without loosing its ability to represent what it was supposed to. Far elements would be simple geometric shapes, close elements would have a bit more detail.
At one point of the keynote, after the commercial breaks and the theme reveal video building up the theme "Roots", we wanted the city to be affected by it.
The backgrounds were dominated by roots spreding, and the outside part of the city is now empty as everyone is concentrated creating their games.
The backgrounds were dominated by roots spreding, and the outside part of the city is now empty as everyone is concentrated creating their games.
Animation
For the animation we experimented with a mix of After Effects and traditional animation using sketched a rough pass of the keyframes to be used as a base for animators to work inside after effects.
Even without the guide of the rough pass, most of the time we created each pose with hold frames thinking like as if we were drawing them.
We avoided the use of any riggings as it is too limiting and we wanted the character movements to be flexible. All you see here is shape layers moving and grooving.
Titles & Transitions
We were also responsible for all their graphic and promotional material during the event, creating animated and static graphics before, during and after the event.
We wanted to make sure everything was part of the same universe, so we created every new graphic following the art direction we had just created. With a solid pre production and design of everything, creating new graphics was a breeze, and super fun.
Client: Global Game Jam | Year: 2023 | Service: Animation, Illustration, Character Design, Graphic Design, Motion Design
Creative Direction: RANDO BANDO (Bebeto Canali, Luis Naza)
Art & Animation Direction: RANDO BANDO (Bebeto Cahali) | Project Management: Thalyta Cavalli
Art & Animation Direction: RANDO BANDO (Bebeto Cahali) | Project Management: Thalyta Cavalli
Background Design: RANDO BANDO (Bebeto Cahali, Luis Naza, Gusta Silva) | Graphic Design: RANDO BANDO (Gusta Silva)
Character Design, Storyboards & Cel Animation: RANDO BANDO (Bebeto Cahali) | Sound & Mixing: Leonardo Lima
Motion Design & Character Animation: RANDO BANDO (Bebeto Cahali, Gusta Silva, Mateus Klein)
Character Design, Storyboards & Cel Animation: RANDO BANDO (Bebeto Cahali) | Sound & Mixing: Leonardo Lima
Motion Design & Character Animation: RANDO BANDO (Bebeto Cahali, Gusta Silva, Mateus Klein)
