This interview points out the most common questions about the animated short delusion and its development. The creators Lisa M. Gierlinger and Victoria Wolfersberger have the answers.
Frequently asked questions
How did you animate the character?
Lisa Mona: I’ve animated the character in Photoshop and AfterEffects. Therefore, I used live-action recording to rotoscope the complex movements in Photoshop. But I also worked with the DUIK plugin in combination with the puppet tool of AfterEffects to animate walkcycles. Some elements – as for example the poncho or the hair of the little girl – are rotoscoped separately.
Which program did you use for the special effects?
Lisa Mona & Victoria: Adobe AfterEffects.
How were the sound and music created?
Victoria: I worked with Logic Pro X. First, I’d composed the music for delusion on my piano at home before I recorded it in the Audio studio at the University.
How long did it take you to create this short movie?
Lisa Mona: In spring 2015 I came up with the idea of a little girl isolated in the woods. December 2016 Victoria and I finished the movie. So, it took us almost 2 years – with some timeouts.
Victoria: Yeah, we worked approximately one and a half year on delusion.
How did you manage to stay motivated all this time?
Victoria: That wasn’t that hard. We’re both very ambitious and accurate. As we presented the work of two semesters in February 2016, we already knew, that we’ll have to continue the work, to get a convincing result for both of us.
Lisa Mona: Right. Also, we’d got so much positive feedback. Enough motivation to work through the summer.
Where did you get the idea for delusion?
Victoria: It was Lisa’s idea. She created the concept and the story for delusion.
Lisa Mona: Well, I got inspired from Stephen King’s book The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. So, I wanted to tell a story of a little girl which gets lost in the woods. Tell about her fears, the isolation.
The main character is a girl? It looks like a boy to me.
Lisa Mona: Well, yeah. We get that a lot. It’s a girl. But that doesn’t really matter if you don’t recognize it at the first moment. I created the main character to be a mainstream figure. Therefore, everybody can identify himself/herself with it. Men often see a boy in it. But she is, in fact, a boyish girl.
Why does the girl wear a poncho?
Lisa Mona: As I designed the main character, I wanted it to be special, of course. As it happens, I draw some poncho figures. I liked them a lot. The child looked so insecure and vulnerable to me. That was perfect. The girl was able to flower out.