The Things That Inspired Us

We wanted to make a film that was light hearted and fun, hence the whimsical style that we adopted while designing our environments. Of course one of the first references that came to our minds was the artwork of Dr. Seuss, which is often made up of fantastical elements that are unusual but amusing.

Dr. Seuss and some of the characters he created

The artwork of Dr. Seuss

Not only that, we searched for more references to help us better grasp the style of our animation through observing theme park buildings that were actually built! We were pleasantly surprised to find out that there's actually a theme park based on the works of Dr. Seuss. It would be nice if we could actually flew to Universal Orlando to experience "Seuss Landing" for ourselves. However, due to budget and time constraints we have to settle for gaping at our computer screens in awe.

To make things more interesting and (hopefully) refreshing, we tried combining some local architecture with the above style to create a whole new environment. Using the iconic shophouse designs that we have in Singapore,

we hope to design our environment into something that local viewers would be find familiar and endearing.

There is an almost unexplainable quaint quality in the shophouses that Singaporeans are familiar with. Though neither of us have actually lived in one, the familarity of these shophouses in our daily lives is an integral part of our heritage. Perhaps that is why they are cherished; not only for their cultural value, but also for all the fond memories that revolves around these shophouses, reminding us of the "good ol'days" that we had in the past. Hopefully, we would be able to share these sentiments with our audience through our designs.

#references #environment