Cinnabar and Almanac Adventures Week: Camp Fire

Camp Fire was another episode that more or less wrote itself. In this case, we came up with the title first. I said, “I’m adding ‘Camp Fire’ to the list.” L asked me what that episode was going to be about. I said, “Guess.” L said, “The camp gets set on fire.” I said, “Yeah.” Plotting short films is easy.

A storyboard from Camp Fire, which might even be funnier than the episode’s plot. Almanac accidentally throws a flaming fish in the direction of the camp.

This episode was technically difficult, since I hadn’t considered how I was going to animate fire. In the end, it turned out a little silly-looking, but the orange color still makes it clear enough that it’s fire, even if the shape tweens make it look like possessed butcher paper. At first, I actually forgot the fire in a few scenes, as well as the water that Almanac dumps out of the fish bucket. This confused test audiences (my grandmother). I added it in before saving the final video file, though. I knew I’d forgotten something!