When the Wheels Stop Turning

Grace Kim

Trailer

Duration: 2 minutes, 31 seconds

Genre: Slice of Life, experimental animated music video

Role: Director and a lot of everything else

Synopsis:

When the Wheels Stop Turning is a short, animated music video, directed by Grace Kim, and music from mwic. The film revolves around the main character, Cat, who is a young and aspiring inventor who moved to the big city to pursue his dreams; however, he struggles to survive as he learns to adapt and balance his work, relationship and self.

Concept Art

Early in the concept stage I was exploring a story that was about a Cat who is on a journey accompanied by their friends. However, as the story progressed, I was drawn closer to coming-of-age themes in young adults, and the growing difficulty to survive in a society which I felt was overwhelming me. I wanted to explore themes of what is it like to balance life when time does not stop, even if you want it to. Life is like a wheel rolling down a hill, and at times it feels like it will not stop. While everything around you just keeps moving forward, sometimes you need to go back to your truest self and give yourself a push to keep going. Thus, the title, When the Wheels Stop Turning.

Layout

One of the most important parts of creating this film was that I wanted the setting to feel like it was falling apart as the video progressed. To achieve that, it was important to establish layout and set planning as early as possible to ensure the camera movements flowed. As Cat become overwhelmed and torn apart by his life, and looses sense of themselves, the same would follow with their environment. What was once familiar and whole, comes apart piece by piece.

Compositing

Once all the pieces for the layout were illustrated in Photoshop and the animation was completed in Moho, they were brought together into After Effects to be rebuilt as a 3D set. Compositing was really important to have all the separate pieces come together into a cohesive visual. As many set pieces were solid color pieces with minimal texture, it was important to utilize visual effects such as texturing and distortion to enhance the turbulent emotions of the main character and prevent sets from appearing too flat.