"The House of Limbo" is a surrealist, mixed media animation that tells the story of a young girl who encounters a mysterious house that appears to have a mind of its own. Throughout the film, the young girl encounters strange creatures in a dreamlike version of the space between life and death. She is faced with an important decision and one last burning question; Is there ever an end or is it just another beginning? Co-created by Charlotte Rose Lavoie-Auspert and Tanya Forte.
Screened at TIFF for the end of year OcadU screening. House of limbo was the runner up for the best animation Award.
About this film:
For this film we were interested in exploring the experience of limbo and its unknown aspects, using a mixed media style to take viewers on a journey that is both material and textural. Our story emerged from discussions about our thoughts on grief and the afterlife.
We had an interest in seeing how materials play a role in visual storytelling and how we could make this ominous dreamworld feel alive. We created our puppet assets out of different paper and fabric and used many found and homemade objects to create the sets. The entire animation was done in stop motion. Our final sequence was animated by a friend of ours, Xinyi and then used as reference to create an embossed paper version of Iris. We used laser cutting and engraving to create a sequence of linoleum stencils. We paper engineered our articulate popup book based on Victorian doll houses and created a variety of illustrations to decorate it. This popup book was really the genesis of our film and having it play one of the characters in our film was important to us. The story revolves around the house as much as the other characters.
Concept and Inception:
Started by sketching out different explorations for our characters and distinguish a visual language for the film.
Once we solidified our characters, I created sketches for the storyboard.
Designing and digitally drawing different mouths for lip sync.
Drawing character turn around for puppet construction and character animation.
Needed to create a turn around for our 2D animator, Xinyi, to create the base animation for the paper world sequence.
Creating Paper Puppets:
Creating the Puppet of Miss Phoenix.
Creating the Puppet for Iris
Creating the Puppet for Mrs. Ladybug
Creating Sets and Set Pieces
Creating the Linoleum laser Cut Animation Sequence
For the end of our film, we wanted Iris to play with the materiality of the puppets and the world they exist in. At the end of the film, Iris must move on from Limbo and step beyond. We had brainstormed what we wanted this beyond to look like. Since the puppets, and the house themselves are made from paper, I thought it would be interesting for Iris to go from being made of paper to becoming paper itself.
I used a mixture of techniques to achieve the final look for the film. First, our 2D animator, Xinyi, created a file that she exported in a png sequence. I brought the files into Illustrator and prepped each frame so that they would be ready to be cut by the laser cutter. Next, was to pass sheets of linoleum through the machine and etch out the details and cut. Then I thoroughly cleaned each linoleum stamp, and pressed them into paper. Finally, I rotoscoped the embossed paper to the original 2D animation which became our final sequence.
Stills from the film:
