Night in the Woods Animated Tribute

Wow, it's DONE. Time to spill EVERYTHING.

SO when I first started working on this August last year, I neeeever thought it would have taken this long. I’d just finished a 40 second Steven Universe animation, and I LOVED the experience of seeing my drawings come to life, so I jumped right into this project, not knowing how much commitment it would take. It was hard working on this, I was really ambitious and wanted to do all these cool shots and have super smooth animation, and so a lot of hours were spent just figuring out how to pull it off - rearranging frames, adding new ones, getting the timing and consistency right, and about a bajillion undo buttons. I really zoned in on working on this over the summer, and no joke, I spent like 8 hours every weekday. Yea I know, could have done something more useful like a job or something. I started feeling really bad about wasting so much time with this slow work, when I could be improving so much more quickly in other aspects of art.

But now that it’s finished, I can look back and see that I did learn some pretty useful skills. Now, I’m way more confident and efficient with animating, I can squash and stretch and smear, I understand perspective a lot more (which is really fun to incorporate into my daily drawings!), and I’ve learned a lot about timing frames. But I think my most important takeaway from this project is that I know I can finish something. I’ve been listening to a lot of Jake Parker’s videos (he’s a successful freelance artist), and he talked about how the world needs more people who finish stuff. I think at my age, not a lot of people can say that they worked on an animation project for a year and followed through. Even though, looking at this video, I cringe my butt off at all the old animations and laugh at how seriously I was taking this, I’m very proud of myself! Another thing from Jake Parker: finished, not perfect!

Also, I know I don’t have a huge following, but for those that have anticipated this animation, thanks for sticking around. This was a very self-motivated project, but all the awesome comments I kept getting on my progress videos gave me an extra boost and always brought a smile to my face. Thanks to my VA’s for their amazing voice-acting chops and for putting up with me when I asked them to redo all their lines haha. Finally, thank you Scott Benson, Alec Holowka, and Bethany Hockenberry for creating this amazing, beautiful, inspirational game that I still love so much :3

So that’s my story, thanks for coming. I think from now on, I’m ready to move on to creating my own ideas. I wanna make a film to enter into the Teen Animation Festival International, and I’m really excited to start working!

Thanks again for watching :)

Music: "Shapes" and "Trailer II" by Alec Holowka
Programs: Flash CS6, Manga Studio 5.0, Sony Vegas Pro 13

[worldwidewebuser]

Hey guys. So yesterday this video hit the 1 million mark. I think this is a good opportunity for me to say that I'm extremely thankful for the experience that creating this animation gave me. I literally cannot watch this video anymore haha, but I'm still thankful for it. Not only did I get to develop my animation skills, I also got so much encouragement and feedback from other excited fans and learned how it felt to create something that resonates with other people. In this case... the desire to see NITW as an animated cartoon! Given the coming-of-age themes of the game it seems kinda perfect that this happened as I my childhood is about to end. As for the game itself, it will always hold a special place in my heart. :) Okay, sappy time over, peace.

[psilon_]

THIS ISN'T JUST A ANIMATION,
IT'S A TRAILER

[rimut]

gregg is so fucking adorable in this one, especially when he says "it's mae!" and starts joyfully dancing. absolutely heartwarming.

[sagesaria]

Special shout out to the voice acting. Everyone's perfect!

[HuneeBruh]

“I would always hear them in fall”
So you could say it was a... *weird autumn*

[showyafriendz]

I thought this was a trailer for a new tv show, but then I remembered nothing on tv looks this good

[Esperisreal]

AWW!! She got 'er mom to play the mom!

[kdkaht]

This video does something that a lot of other videos that have voicing don’t do. The voices in this actually have emotion, and don’t sound like they were people recording at night, trying not to wake their parents.

[__tadpole__]

The characters are so well explained and thought out that everyone has basically the same voice for them. It really shows just how well the characters are fleshed out.

[kathrynrees]

I would so regularly binge-watch this as a series on Netflix

[thethunderspirt]

it feels like i'm watching a trailer for a Netflix adaption of the game. it's so well animated. and the voices were great too

[kammieceleek]

See, this is why I think Night in the Woods would be one of the few indie games to make a fantastic animated movie. They don't even need to change that much. Add lip movement, voice-acting, and a little more to the animation of the game, and take out the speech bubbles, and there. You've got a movie. A little this and that.

[paulofduty]

petition for this girl to make an entire series animated series out of this. I'd love to see it, hands down.

[cellochicita]

Holy crap! This turned out so nice! I was so thrilled to be voicing Mae, thank you so much for the opportunity!

[bluesharpie]

Damnnnn, for a fan animation this looks absolutely professional, even individual voice actors of the characters were developed.

[SwankyBox]

Stumbling upon this made my night. I was at a convention on Saturday and had the opportunity to chat with Scott and Bethany about NitW, their inspiration for how the story unfolded, and how the game came together from start to end. This is honestly the icing on the cake for me after being able to hear their tale. Amazing work all around on this animation, Sarah!

[theotheseaeagle]

Imagine if Night in the Woods became an official animated TV show

[pyrorenegade]

The voices are scarily spot on, I love this sm

[pleaseno]

"Wait... Is that an arm???"
"LETS POKE WITH A STICK"

[saragrant]

I'm so sad the creator passed away. I feel like I'll never play a game like this ever again and it makes me depressed. They captured a vibe I haven't seen since the early 2000's.