Balyena: A Whale’s Journey Through Life

Animation Lab Team in Association with the Columbus College of Art & Design

The structure of this class worked as a real-life studio environment. Us, the students, were required to work as professional artists. We managed our time, completed the tasks on schedule, and presented as if in a studio. We learned a variety of software packages and have learned to pick the right tools for the challenges we encountered while having had completed a variety of complex tasks. Classes were run like a production studio, with students being treated like they would in such an environment. We discussed and achieved short-term goals, long-term outcomes, and deliverables. Students were the artists, while the instructor acted as a Creative Director.

More About the Process…

Once a theme was chosen, the story to accompany it was soon in the works. The Lab Team students were set to create a compelling and moving production; a character needed to be defined to represent the project. It wasn’t long before an admired idea came along… The majestic blue whale would be the creature expressing the riveting sequence of life and death. The next objective to accomplish was the script; we needed to now very clearly state this whale’s life story.

We held many class sessions where we provided possible story concepts, generated a wide variety of whale sketches, and brought about ideas that would captivate outsiders.

With the theme, character, and story sorted out, it was time for another element to be explored: the music score. With a voting process identical to the previous, a song was found and chosen. “Leap of Faith” by Audiomachine captures our story aesthetic perfectly; its mesmerizing melody takes you under the sea and brings you up close and personal into the transfixing tale of the whale.