Return to the Dream (2012, 2005)

Synopsis:

“A horror animated tale about a lost child in a strange world of dreams. His mother is his only hope, she is going to his rescue.”

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Personal comments about 2012 version:

Advice: It would be better to have good sound equipment before watching the 2012 version. The music and sound work are simply masterful.

I always felt that this short film was unfinished. Perhaps it was because of the soundtrack, which was good but synthesized MIDI, the total lack of a sense of editing rhythm, or the poor animation, but the true reason was that the original version failed to tell a clear story and was an overall strange piece of work, despite being successful at being scary (like a good horror story). Six years later, I had more perspective, watched it again and realized that the initial project was too ambitious for my abilities at the time. With a lot of experience gained over the years, I started thinking about how to improve the original work.

A new and shorter edit provided a better rhythm and pace. I also solved a lot of animation issues, added a narrator’s voice that tells the story of the film, a new visual effects layer and a new soundtrack. After all, I can finally say that this short is finished. Seven years later. Yes, now! I’m very happy with the results. This short film is the same work as ever, but it has now been greatly improved. The original master has finally reached its full potential.

It was a great opportunity to learn how to remove errors that prevent promising material from shining as it should. By the way, I am finally satisfied with the result.

Personal comments about 2005 version:

After studying at CICE in 2004, I was offered the opportunity to make a final course project with a length of one minute. As on other occasions, I decided to go further and tell a first complete animation story in order to prove myself, test my abilities and learn as much as I could.

Animation stories tend to have very similar treatments; something uncommon is animation horror plots. I see the horror genre as one based more on psychological elements than on a fullness of viscera or a series of empty tensions created by editing and sound. If you want to feel afraid, read short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and other masters like them. If you want to feel more afraid, you can turn on the TV and try to understand the society where we live. If you want to feel the strongest emotions, turn off the TV, explore your own mind, and find yourself.

The other main ingredient was the opportunity to explore the world of dreams, merge it with reality and find ways of creating anguish and tension by pulling everyone’s inner strings. That scary-dreamy mix is perhaps this short’s main value and, at the same time, its biggest dead weight, because it damages the fluent understanding of the plot by making the story very metaphorical and primal.

This short was a baptism of fire in Global Illumination and many other 3D and post-production areas, which reveals itself in an irregular technical quality. Also, this project was realized under such extraordinarily difficult personal conditions that I wonder today how it could be finished despite all the people who seemed to want to prevent it.

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Always improving. The best and the worst:

• The best: visual appeal; the story achieves its main goal: making you feel anxious.
• The worst: the 2012 version resolves a lot of animation problems, but the original animation work is terribly done and severely damages the story; I had only learned how to animate a few months before starting this project.

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General Info:

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Production info:

Director: Andrés Vidal Alarcón.
Production company: Avaray Works.
Writing: Andrés Vidal Alarcón.
Art: Modelling & Animation: Andrés Vidal Alarcón.
Postprocessing & Film Cut: Andrés Vidal Alarcón.
Narrator: Sofía Comas.
Music & Sound Edition: Phillip Lazer (pseudonym).
Distribution company: Promofest.