Wake TF Up · Seewing Chun

The film

Eyes flicker open, already bloodshot. A phone alarm reads 6 am with a snooze button waiting. The eyes and the alarm stare each other down, the alarm gets hit, colour floods the frame, and the eyes drift shut again, ready to repeat.

Storyboard

The film was first planned by hand on one sheet, with notes for the sound (intense, distorted music) and the materials, then redrawn as a twelve-frame board: eyes opening, the 6 am alarm, the stare-off, the hit, and back to sleep.

Digital storyboard in twelve frames: lashes in swirling lines, eyes opening and turning bloodshot, a phone alarm at 6 am with snooze, the cracked alarm, eyes closing and z’s The first hand-drawn storyboard, with notes on sound and materials

Materials

The eyes are built from polymer clay in three states, wide open, bloodshot and shut, so they could be swapped frame by frame. The colour that sweeps across the frame is wool roving in pink, orange and lime, which moves and frays in a way clay can’t.

Clay eyes in three states: wide open, half-closed and bloodshot, and shut with lashes Packs of black, white and red polymer clay beside pink, orange and lime wool roving

Shooting

The film was shot frame by frame in two setups. The clay eyes were laid on black card under a camera on a tripod, nudged a little between every picture and checked on the camera’s screen. Five minutes of that, sped up:

Moving the bloodshot clay eyes on black card, with the camera on its tripod overhead showing the frame on its screen The clay eyes and red z’s laid out under the tripod camera

The wool sequences were shot on a rostrum stand under studio lights, with each frame checked on screen as the sequence built up.

The rostrum stand with an overhead camera, studio lights and the wool laid out on the table, with the capture screen beside it The capture screen showing a frame of wool and clay mid-sequence