The Shepherd's Flock

The Shepherd's Flock

When a dragon attacks a village in the dead of night, a shepherd and a lamb are the only survivors. Together they embark on a year-long journey to discover how to live and love again. 

This was a student thesis film done at Savannah College of Art and Design directed by Ellie Copeland.

Crew

Producer: Lauren John.

Animation Lead: Jessica Lomonaco.

Art Lead: Caitlin O'Toole.

Compositing Supervisors: Theda Lwin and Hailey See.

Animators: Anderson Anderson, and Isabella Acquasaliente, Jessica Lomonaco, Theda Lwin, Hailey See.

Visual Development and Background Artists: Ippy Petrie, Lillian Phillips, Ellie Copeland, Caitlin O'Toole, and Lauren John.

Additional Crew

Background Artists: Jillian Avery, Martina Tasende, Evelyn Dale, Dayna Dyar, Danny Conejo.

Animators: Quinn Tisdale, Tess McConville, Madhava Kinnicutt, Miranda Bristow, Molly "Snail” Howard, Ashley Hayden.

Music By: Zachary Garcia.

Supervising Sound Editor: Joshua Lee.

Foley Artist and Sound FX Editor: Chris Lamas.

Re-Recording Mixer: Andreas Asimakopoulos.

Voice Actors

Zachary DeSanders as Aymer

Ashley Goldberg as the Lamb

Olivia Hardman as the Mother

Sidney Patterson as the Son

Special thanks to Associate Chair Jonathan Standing, Adriana Garcia, and Mia Copeland.

Posters

Initial Visual Development

This was created during the initial stage of development for the story. These explorations helped narrow the style of the film and I pulled the most inspiration from Cartoon Saloon at this stage.

Production Visual Development

When the team was established and the story completely finalized, the team went into visual development for the final designs. These included style frames, character turn arounds and line ups. It also included designs such as the trolls that ultimately got cut. This is only an extremely small portion in comparison to what everyone else on the team contributed at this stage. Together, the final designs were established, and the film moved forward. 

Background Paint

After pre-production and visual development was done, the team moved onto animation and background illustration. Backgrounds had to fit the same style in every shot despite the seasons changing throughout this film. As director, I helped guide the team and critique their work to ensure that everything remained consistent. At this stage, the style developed into something more unique for the film, which resulted into the final style that is portrayed through every shot in the film. 

Examples of redraws done to help unify all the backgrounds together.