On April 19 2024, RMCAD hosted its first Frames n Games Festival. Frames n Games is a festival featuring all forms of animation and game art. Students could submit from various stages of production, including animatics, 3D models, environments, and more. The categories included Animatics, 3D Renders, Short Form Animation, and Long Form Animation. The winners of these categories were Abigail Sygitowicz’s Bank Robbery, Peyton Murdock’s SkyMind, Ethan Hamill’s G Man Stan, and Atlas Fuson’s you smell of dead flowers. We interviewed Murdock, Hamill, and Fuson who gave insight on their creative process and their experiences working on their submissions.
Peyton Murdock – SkyMind (3D Render)
What was working on your submission like?
“It’s a project I’m very passionate about. I’ve been working on it for about two years and I’m really passionate about the idea of using the airplane environment for a horror game, which hasn’t been done before. Unreal Engine (a game development software) has been tricky, but I’m getting the hang of it. I really enjoyed modeling the characters and making the environment.”
What were your major inspirations for your submission?
“For most of my childhood, I was making games related to Five Nights at Freddy’s. I’m a huge fan of the strategic element and resource management of those games, so I wanted to incorporate that in some way into this environment, especially considering that it’s claustrophobic and really just one room. I’m also inspired by P.T. Silent Hills, where it loops through doors to go back to the same place. I wanted to incorporate that into the airplane environment, so imagine a blend of both.”
Have you been able to work on your project or anything similar since the festival?
“I am continuing to work on programming and learning Unreal Engine.
There are some complications, but I’m working on it. I am planning out the game further and hope to have an actual gameplay trailer by the next event.”
What advice do you have for students who want to participate in the future?
“Don’t just wait for classes to learn, go out of your way and teach yourself. Look into Blender, Unreal Engine, and other tutorials. Sometimes it’ll be really intuitive and just immediately click, but other times, it might not. Personally, I think Unreal Engine is very unintuitive, so I have to keep watching tutorials over and over again, but that’s just part of the process. Classes will only take you so far, so absolutely do stuff outside of class.”
Ethan Hamill – G Man Stan (Short Form)
What was working on your submission like?
“I worked on the project a year or two before the festival, so I didn’t make it specifically for the animation festival. I posted the video about a year ago, and worked on the film for about a year and a half to two years before that.”
What were your major inspirations for your submission?
“The character was based on a Lego I had. He had a gray suit and kind of a disheveled look about him, which I incorporated into the character sheet for G Man Stan, a stressed out government agent. From there, I made a little short animation of him being chased by this monster, almost as a proof of concept. You always have these big ideas for big episodes, but it really was just a concept animation to see the character in action. If I never end up making this project, at least I brought him to life in a little short animation. In terms of my art style, Steven Universe was a big inspiration as well as Calvin and Hobbes.”
Now that it’s been a few months, how do you feel about your submission and win?
“I feel good about it. I’m glad that I was able to be recognized for my work and that people seemed to like it.”
Have you been able to work on your project or anything similar since the festival?
“The main thing that I’ve been working on is my capstone project. I challenged myself to make a short film in 16 weeks, which is the film I’m working on right now. It’s called The Great Pastrami Salami. It’s a little short about people who work at a deli called the Big Deluxe. It’s just a normal day, but then a giant boar breaks in and the restaurant workers are scrambling to get a sandwich done in order to appease this hungry beast. The only way to stop him is to get him his sandwich. Outside of school, I landed some gig work in motion graphics and have been considering doing some more shorts with G Man Stan. I would love the opportunity to explore the character again if given the chance.”
What advice do you have for students who want to participate in the future?
“Well, first you gotta have a film. Let yourself be creative and don’t get too bogged down. I’ve been in many situations myself where I’ve seen film festival opportunities and let them pass me by just because I was thinking about it way too much. Maybe it’s getting in the habit of making minute long short films of varying quality? Just make stuff. Don’t keep yourself from doing that because if you don’t have that library, you’re not going to have stuff to choose from to submit to film festivals, and you might miss out on those opportunities.”
Atlas Fuson – you smell of dead flowers (Long Form)
What was working on your submission like?
“Working on this animation was definitely a journey. I started work on it in early December 2023 when I first heard about the festival, and then continued to work on it up until the initial due date. There were a lot of ups and downs. It was a roller coaster. But overall, I’m happy with how it turned out.”
What were your major inspirations for your submission?
“Mostly the song (you smell of dead flowers) itself was an inspiration. The characters within it are my own personal characters, and they’ve been with me for a long time. When I first heard the song, a couple of months before I started working on the project, I immediately associated it with them. All the old VHS effects that were found in the original music video inspired me to take this sort of modern project and give it a little bit of an old-timey feel to it.”
(concept sketch provided by Atlas)
Now that it’s been a few months, how do you feel about your submission and win?
“I’m proud of it and proud of the amount of work I got done within such a short amount of time. I learned a lot anatomically since I worked on that project, so there are a lot of improvements that could be made, but it’s something that I might consider a couple of years from now, going back and remaking just to see how far I’ve come.”
Have you been able to work on your project or anything similar since the festival?
“For the next Frames n Games Festival, my project will inevitably fall within a very similar medium to you smell of dead flowers. But I’ve taken what I’ve learned in this project and I’ve applied it to school assignments and other things. I haven’t necessarily worked on you smell of dead flowers since, but rather, I’ve worked on world-building overall to help develop the characters themselves.”
What advice do you have for students who want to participate in the future?
“A lot of people tend to gloss over the planning phase of their projects. I’m one of them personally. I just want to dive in and get started on animating the line art as soon as possible. I’m very ambitious in that manner. However, for this project, I took a step back and I storyboarded. In fact, I storyboarded on paper. And I cannot exclaim enough how useful storyboarding on paper was. When you work digitally, you tend to get caught up in undoing things. I found that doing as much planning as I could on paper helped tremendously and I was able to then go into my digital program with all of my work streamlined.”
If you are interested in learning more about RMCAD’s animation and game art BFA programs (available both on campus and online), visit here. To stay in the know of the next Frames n Games Festival, be sure to stay connected on RMCAD’s events calendar.
Some of the quotes in this story have been edited for brevity and clarity by the author, but are meant to retain the significance and purpose of the original speaker.
