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www.postmagazine.com 36 POST JULY 2016 EDUCATION & RECRUITMENT 'On the Same Page' Sometimes life can be an adventure if you find the right partner. In the animated short film "On the Same Page," a disci- plined news reporter puts work at the forefront, writing the news rather than living it. That is, until he meets an adven- turesome woman who shows him how fun life is when you experience it firsthand. The same can be said of the student creators of this animated short film, Carla Lutz and Alli Norman from Ringling College of Art and Design, who received a second-place Student Emmy for the work this past May. Not only did they take this filmmaking journey together, but they are continuing their professional journey in Los Angeles as best friends and room- mates, with Norman working at Hasbro doing 3D modeling and sculpting for toys and Lutz working on the animated series All Hail King Julien for DreamWorks Animation Television. "We actually used to joke that this film was just a story about the friend- ship between Alli and myself, since I relate to the serious demeanor of our main writer character and Alli has the same spunk and spontaneity our comic girl does," says Lutz. "Because of this, so much of us are embedded in every aspect of this film, which we hope audi- ences can subconsciously feel." The three-minute, 49-second film was created by the two friends, who acted as co-directors. Norman served as lead for design, character/environment modeling, texturing, painting, lighting and "caffeine." Lutz, meanwhile, was producer, heading up story edits, animation, technical rig- ging and compositing, as well as manag- ing and scheduling the team of compos- ers and sound designers. "Even though we each acted as the leader for certain sections of the pipe- line, we both modeled, rigged, textured, animated, lit and composited for this film," notes Lutz. "Even our design work was 50-50, as all assets were split up between us. Our characters are a great example of this: We both created designs for each, and then one of us acted as the 'lead' for that character, to finalize it." Pre-production began in a class during the second semester of junior year. From that point on, the two women worked on the film full time from roughly 8am until 2am daily for a year and a half until April 2015. However, before the project was tion, lighting, or compositing," he adds. Yet, seeing the characters come to life was well worth the effort. "I remember the first times Squiddy (a friendly squid) and the shark were animated. As a rigger and character modeler, there is no greater reward than to finally see your characters move and come to life," Raoult says. Valuable Lessons According to Ku-Herrero, because the artists were given the opportunity to work on a bigger and longer film (it's 6 minutes and 43 seconds), they were met with some very interesting challenges along the way. "It was an extremely exhilarating experi- ence to have been challenged so much technically and learn how much we are capable of pushing ourselves," she says. Indeed, working on the film resulted in many lessons, and not all of them tech- nical. "I learned about the importance of communication and proper structure within a production. Organization is incred- ibly important the bigger the project is," Ku-Herrero adds. "And without a proper pipeline, the film just wouldn't have been feasible to create in the allotted time." Armed with this experience, these award-winning filmmakers are now look- ing to make their mark in the professional world. Raoult has found employment at Laika, while the other three are working as freelance artists. Meanwhile, they have some shiny hardware to show for their early efforts.