Fairies and Friends, the DS Origins Trailer. Approved for small children.

Despite the humungous mess this year has turned out to be, I somehow managed to pull out an animation for the Flicks, and thus something I was able to hand in.For all the things that have gone wrong this year, I at least have that, even if it amounted to nothing more than a trailer for Dreamspace Origins, rather than a short animation of the story itself.
I suppose that is an achievement, however. And while most of the trailer followed the storyboard, some scenes were changed - probably most notably the scene where the fairyfly flies right up to the fairyfox, Tarri. In the storyboard, the fairyfly files into the den, where it wakes him up, before he follows... although in the time period I had, I did not have the time to create a new setting, and since it was already going to be a trailer, I thought I could do it a bit differently, using a set I had already put together, which saved on time.


Dreamspace / Origins: Trailer

Alright, so the animation is now more of a trailer representing characters and elements which take place later in the Dreamspace series. Dreamspace itself is made up of a number of segments, the first being Dreamspace / Splash.
From there, following those events (or to be more precise, continues after the events of Splash never happened, where the story continues four years prior in a changed timeline), with the title Dreamspace / Realms, or Dreamspace / Worlds... I have yet to decide on a name. After, it follows directly with the working title Dreamspace / Timelock, and then Dreamspace / Requiem.
Dreamspace / Origins follows after that, which explains the beginning of the entire series, before leading on to the titles mentioned above, ultimately coming home and ending where it started, hence the caption in the trailer "Where the story begins is where it all ends."

So. The trailer advertises the world of fairies - every creature living here is a fairy, in many different shapes and sizes, from firefly-like fairies, to bird fairies, deer fairies, fox fairies, pretty much any creature is a fairy.
What makes them fairies is locked in the fact, besides that they live in a world inhabited by fairies where everyone is a fairy, but the aspect of life which I have attributed to fairies - that glowing ball of light which can appear above the creatures head, or around any other part of their body from a focal point, is life energy in it's purest form.
It is a peaceful world.
And then comes the introduction of the Anticre, short for anti creature, which is the reverse of any living creature, basically. They feed off life energy, and like vampires in a sense, their victims become one of them, their dead husks reanimate, and they too prey on the living for their life forces.


Layout of said Trailer

For the trailer, I had to take what I felt was the best representative parts of my storyboard and have them animated and rendered. How much I planned to animate and render depending heavily on how much time it took, and how much time was remaining, so I had to make a bit of a list.
The opening scene was important. A camera fly-through following the fairyfly, I felt, was integral to begin with, as was the "Fairy Dance" scene - the scene where multiple fairyflies "danced" skywards, displaying a beautiful and peaceful world full of wonder.
The inclusion of Tarri, the main protagonist, was unavoidable. Time had to be put aside to have at least a couple scenes with him, since having a trailer without the main character is very poor, in my view - the story revolves around him, after all. And the one scene with the fairydeer was to show interaction within this world.
With the introduction of the anticre within the trailer, having Tarri suddenly turn his head around in startling fashion was also important, it was to give the feeling that something was amiss, and that there was danger afoot.
I then had a group of anticre standing there, a group of creatures so very out of place in this world. While in the original storyboard, several anticre do show up after the initial attack, this scene was created solely for the trailer - to increase the stakes, while at the same time being a simple animation to put together and fast enough to render.
The scene showing two anticre in attack stance, opening their gaping mouths, is from the storyboard, however the last scene after the title was also created especially for the trailer, with the intent on creating a reaction with the audience itself.
The scream it utters is part of the anticre's attack, freezing it's target with fear, so that it might feast upon it's life.

The music at the start felt very fitting for the world it was helping to set up.
The fading to a heartbeat was to introduce the dire situation that was growing.
The credits did not have any music or sound. This was fully intentional, since within my credits I give special thanks to my grandmother, who recently passed away, and it would not have felt right having anything but silence for the rolling credits.

Anyway, enough about that. How about some screenshots?

Why this animation was set for the last animation of the night and not in the first half, I will never know.
Rated E for Everyone.