Grandpa’s Tapes
As a final hurrah at CalArts, I spent my time on a project dedicated to my grandfather and the stories he shared through the hours of cassette tape recordings he left me. Three hand-picked stories were illustrated and animated in Adobe After Effects, with hand painted textures selectively applied to add a more tactile human touch.
Select moments from Grandpa’s Tapes
Styleframe Illustrations
Development Sketches
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Guà Bāo was ultimately cut due to no specific story centering the snack.
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Early idea on how the island food icons would pop up on screen.
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The concept of including the famous dàn zǎi miàn on taiwanese tiles was an early idea on how to inbue each frame with cultural specificity
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Another take on the Gua Bao idea— I really wanted to make it work!
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Color thoughts for the "fire on" shot early in the film.
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Rough blocking of how the tsuà bīng (shaved ice) might look.
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Another early idea was for taiwanese style zhòng zi to be wrapped on screen, but ultimately scrapped in favor of more resonant stories
“Everyone knows that eating is one of life’s greatest pleasures, simply eating is a blessing.”
— Dr. Mingpo Chen (my grandfather)