Tom Pennington

Thomas Edward Pennington is an interactive designer specializing in game design, animation, and music composition. Based in the Greater Philadelphia area and South Jersey, he has been endorsed for his work in world building, storyboarding, and concept illustration. He is collaborating with the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard and the TCNJ Art Gallery on an upcoming 2022 exhibition.

What Exactly is “After the Fact”?

On the surface, “After the Fact” is a hand drawn digital 2D animation. Within the project there is voice acting, a jazzy backing track from Kevin Macleod, and thematic illustrations. In the classic three story structure used by novelists everywhere, “After the Fact” is the middle act, its in the middle of an overarching story with the Detective at its middle. To quickly clarify, the middle act of the three act story is the rising action to midpoint before plot point two which would then move into the climax of the third act. This was intentional as most of the animation is set in a flashback monologue in the style extremely similar to the typical Film Noir grizzled detective.

The Genre

This is my first time creating a fully fledged, hand-drawn 2D animation. Using Krita, I created a synthesis of cyberpunk and Film Noir tropes to make an intriguing story with developed characters living their lives within a criminally corrupted dystopian city of the future. On a technicality, Cyberpunk is a derivative of the main Film Noir umbrella but I would argue that they are separate enough to be called their own genres. Film Noir is not a genre to begin with. It is a period of cinema history where French film critics coined these American gritty films as Film Noir, meaning black film. After this period of film making finished, the post-noirs began to develop, which is where Cyberpunk lands as a science fiction noir.

I always enjoyed the characteristics of Film Noir and the science fiction future. I was particularly inspired by the recently released game from developer CD Projekt, “Cyberpunk 2077” and the game from Rockstar Games, “L.A. Noire”. I wanted to try my hand at forming these two film movements together, and from the current responses that each prototype has been receiving, I believe that there is a definite future of fitting Film Noir and Cyberpunk together as a set of themes to create different media to.

The Story and Characters

Disclaimer: I will not be divulging the entire plot line of the animation as that will be covered within the animation, and I am a firm believer of being able to read in-between the lines (rephrased: Reading the subtext).

The world and story of “After the Fact” are, as previously mentioned, already set and moving by the time the audience is watching the events take place after they already happened. The three main characters are The Detective, The Chief, and The Vixen. Depending on how much I accomplished within the shown animation, the audience will have seen all three of these main characters.

Story

Surrounding the events of a high profile murder, The Detective must find out what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how this all led up to him being disgraced in the eyes of the public.

The story of “After the Fact” is set in a dystopian cyberpunk city where the rich rule over the poor as a puppet government signs obtuse and vague executive orders just to keep things looking civil to outside on-lookers. This city is enraptured by criminal underworld, and any sort of police institution have fallen from the justice and good judgement they once had. The Detective, having recently been disgraced in act one of the over-arching story, must think back and discover how events transpired and why he was cast out of precinct one by The Chief. This struggle to remember and align events is the “After the Fact” animated monologue.

Characters

The Detective: The main character, the person thinking to himself and to the audience. The events shown are mostly experienced by the Detective, not driven or specifically caused by the Detective. He fills the role of the Wrongly Accused Hard boiled Detective in a typical Film Noir story.

The Chief: This is the police chief of precinct one within The City, which is where The Detective is stationed and where The Vixen and murder victim live and work. He is easily wooed by affection and greed. This character fills the lead role of the “Lopsided Arm of the Law” trope within Film Noir.

The Vixen: This character is shrouded in mystery, as they should be. The Vixen can be the linchpin of the entire series of events. They, unbeknownst to the characters around them, are the actual puppet master, exemplifying the Femme Fatale trope within Film Noir character tropes.

After the Fact: Behind the Scenes

Aesthetic Choices

Artistic Styles

Color theory must be kept in mind when designing anything digitally coherent, and if an artist has researched and knows about color theory and how to read a color wheel, I am a firm believer that their work will benefit immensely. One does not need to know color theory extensively to create a master piece of course, just like a musician does not need to know music theory to compose a great piece of music. Color theory is simply a very useful tool in the toolbox of creativity. Another consideration that had to be made while designing the color palette of “After the Fact” are the two movements that are a major focus of the project as a whole, which are Film Noir and Cyberpunk.

From the beginning, I decided that I did not want to work in monochrome for one simple reason. I like colorful scenes. I decided to emphasize the neon colors of the future, putting particular emphasis on the colder color spectrum (blues, purples, teals, whites). Film noir content typically occurs inside with shadows or at night in the rain, which ended up working very well with the cold color palette I had decided to work with. An additional plus to having most of the background be a dark color is that the futuristic neon signs and lit up buildings really made the scenes come to life as it spoke of how populated this city is.

The Animation style posed challenging as I have mentioned previously, this project was the first animation I have taken on. If I am to continue this animation, I would definitely work on the timing of things as currently it looks more like an animatic than it does an animation. Of course, an animatic is a form of an animation and in some points an animatic style works with a flashback monologue which works very well with “After the Fact”.

Krita was my digital workspace. Of the firsts I tackled through this project, I had never worked in Krita before, I had been working in Clip Studio Paint or Photoshop for projects in the past. Now, Krita is my main workspace as I have become very comfortable with its workflow and plethora of tools to help in creating inside shots, outside shots, and characters interacting with said scenes. An extremely useful tool that Krita has are the rulers, which made creating interiors, exteriors, and pieces of furniture infinitely easier than it had any right being. This ruler tool includes rulers like a vanishing point, perspective rulers, concentric circle rulers, and several others that each have their own specific use. If a beginning digital animator or digital artist were to come to me for recommendations for a great free to use program, I would heavily suggest Krita.

Audio Choices

The most important piece of a Film Noir monologue is the monologue itself. When I began work on this animation, I knew a perfect person to voice The Detective and he absolutely made the role his own. I did not speak about this in any prototype meeting, but as he read through the script, I encouraged him to speak off the script if he felt the desire to and some of the great lines that made it into the animation were not on the script. Artistic freedom, while it is a double-edged sword, can seriously benefit a project if encouraged properly.

When I was planning out “After the Fact”, I wanted to write the Music myself. Unfortunately during the production process, I had to realign several times due to time intensive issues outside of class. Luckily, I knew of a repository of amazing royalty free music which is Incompetech. Incompetech is the website ran by the composer of the music listed there, which is the talented Kevin Macleod. Picking a smooth jazzy number called “Night on the Docks - Trumpet” after an extensive dive into which song I would want accompanying the narration and the animation on screen was simply fitting. Its emphasis on the trumpet while having a backing piano and synth occasionally taking the lead really sells the mysterious retrospective that is the entire mood of “After the Fact”.

After the Fact: A Retrospective

Of all the projects I have had the privilege (Sometimes positive, sometimes negative) of working on during my years in the wonderful Interactive Multimedia major, I think this has to have been the most challenging, which of course that is what thesis is supposed to be. Covid-19 did not help any of my studies, least of all thesis. Schooling from home caused a special kind of lethargy to take affect, which then caused this animation to turn from a completed product to simply being a trailer. Despite this, I still believe that I have done very good work here considering the situation present to my fellow students and I, and I have to sincerely thank my thesis professor Teresa Nakra. The patience she showed when I would come to a one on one meeting with nothing to show more than once is something I know some professors would not have tolerated.

“After the Fact” will be used as a demonstration of achieving a high level of workmanship somewhat outside of what my comfort zone. My study focused on 3D modeling and game design, with a minor focus in electronic music composition. None of which involves 2D animation of this level, but I am very glad I decided to work on this project despite Covid-19 and my own lethargy. “After the Fact” will forever be one of my great successes that came from The College of New Jersey.