photo taken in London Aquarium

The initial idea for the film actually came from a book called Why Fish Don’t Exist, which caught my attention with these creatures. Around the same time, we had a course trip to the Natural History Museum. While walking through, I came across the sea species hall, where filled with rows of different fish specimens preserved inside glass jars. It gave me a feeling of peaceful because everything was so organized, but also like total horror. That peaceful horror vibe became the exact foundation for my story. To further study and ground the animation, I spent a day in London Aquarium taking photos and videos of fish and their living spaces. 

But turning these abstract pieces of ideas into a story and storyboard was a whole different challenge. Since the film has absolutely no dialogue, so pacing was everything during the early boarding phase. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to set up the girl’s obsession with order through her actions, movements and hints in assets and environments. I needed the audience to instantly feel how neat and sterile her room is, and how much that one “glitchy” fish ruins her peace of mind.

specimens from the Natural History Museum

The initial story was completely different from the final version. It was about a girl holding a fish tank and put it on the ground. She was sitting there observing the fish inside the tank, and decided to grab it out and put it inside a jar like a specimens. While the glass reflected her face overlaying the fish, she was scared and eventually put the fish in a bigger tank (bath tub), stepped inside and sitting there with the fish.

Initial Storyboard on sketchbook

updated storyboard on February

The turning point of the storyboard is when her shows the anxiety , and aggressively grabs the fish with her bare hands and stuffs it into a glass jar. I drew a lot of close-ups and arms shots here because I really wanted to capture her emotions and twisted, scary reflection in the glass, which shows her control completely breaking down. Capturing the moment she drops the jar and gets pulled into the chaotic, surreal world was tricky to sketch out on paper, and it would need extra information in the film to tells the difference between her real world and inner world.

Storyboard updated and sketches

While the story is completely different, I’m still keeping some important key shots in the later on version such as catching fish, the reflecting face. When I put my sketches onto a timeline for the animatic stage, I realized some of the opening shots were dragging. I ended up cutting down the beginning scenes so I could give more breathing time to the surreal sequence. This made sure the audience feels just as overwhelmed by the chaos as the character. Finally, I timed the ending with a shot showing her pasting the paper drawn fish on the tank and giving that chilling, satisfied fake smile.

To be honest, for the storyboarding and layout part, I have constantly fixed and changed the timing even the animation throughout the whole production period. As my knowledge gains day by day, some of the shots I considered them no longer fitting in the film. As this is an individual film, setting deadlines for production goals are actually not suitable for me. While this is not a good thing, a mature animator should have most of the important things well-prepared before the production period. The changes of my storyboards and layouts affected the later on production time, and even making those shots inconsistent.