Angry Employee Animation
A short, comedic character animation created during my university studies, built around the audio line “There’s a letter in your mailbox!”. The goal was to exaggerate frustration through performance, timing, and physical comedy, resulting in a very literal head-first introduction to the desk.
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Working from a supplied rig with limited controls, I focused on clear acting, readable silhouettes, and strong lip sync. Extensive video reference was used for facial movement, typing behaviour, and body mechanics, including acting out the scene myself to capture natural timing and weight.
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The environment was built by me, with additional props sourced from a marketplace. Small details, such as accurate, reference-based typing, were planned from the outset to reward closer viewing and add believability to the performance.
Concepting & Storyboarding
The animation concept was developed in response to a set of provided audio clips. After reviewing the supplied character rig and its exaggerated, cartoon-style proportions, I chose to lean into a caricature of workplace frustration rather than subtle realism.
The line “There’s a letter in your mailbox!” became the foundation for the Angry Employee concept: a short, escalating sequence that builds tension through performance before releasing it with the shouting voicemail.
The Storyboard was used to explore timing, staging, and camera framing early on, allowing the core beats of the animation to be established before keyframing. This helped ensure the humour and emotional arc were readable, and each action flowed clearly into the next.
Planning & Dope sheets
Dope sheets were used to plan both the overall structure of the animation and the finer details of the lip sync. The first dope sheet mapped out the main actions and camera beats across the full 12-second sequence, providing a clear framework for pacing and escalation.
A second, more detailed dope sheet focused specifically on the dialogue, breaking down the timing and mouth shapes for the phrase “There’s a letter in your mailbox!”. This separation allowed performance and technical accuracy to be refined independently, resulting in clearer lip sync while maintaining strong, expressive body animation.
Animation Principles
The short was developed with the 12 principles of animation in mind, with particular emphasis on squash & stretch, anticipation, timing, and exaggeration to support a clear and readable performance. Facial squash and stretch was used extensively during dialogue to reflect how the face deforms in real speech, while anticipation was used to prepare the viewer for larger actions, such as the headbutt, ensuring key moments were clearly communicated.
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Pose-to-pose animation was used to establish strong keyframes and staging before refining motion with slow-in, slow-out, arcs, and overlapping action. Secondary actions, such as the delayed movement of the chair wheels, were added to reinforce weight and momentum. Exaggeration was pushed within the limits of the rig to enhance comedic impact, while avoiding limb twinning and maintaining clean silhouettes helped preserve appeal and readability throughout the animation.