Sun & Moon Studios on spreading holiday cheer in Timeless Gifts

Timeless Gifts is a film about remembering what’s important, particularly during the holidays. The film tells the story of a young girl who doesn't receive the present she wanted for Christmas. As she grows up, she doesn’t forget about that gift. Years later, she travels back in time to give her younger self the gift she always wanted. But when she gets there, she realizes that what she wanted might not have been what she needed. 

The film was made by Sun & Moon Studios, a studio based in Bristol, as their 2021 Christmas short. The studio assembled their crew to bounce different ideas around. Nia Alavezos' story of the young girl and her time machine won the vote by a landslide! 

Making Timeless Gifts was an opportunity for Sun & Moon to tell one of their own stories and it also gave Nia a chance to direct for the first time. We caught up with Nia Alavezos (writer, director, and producer) as well as Dan Keeble (rigging, animation and compositing) to learn more about the making of Timeless Gifts.

Could you start by telling me about Sun & Moon Studios?

Dan: Sun & Moon Studios started out with just two guys, founders Dylan Shipley and Louis Jones. We’re an award-winning and creative-led animation production studio, known for producing high-quality animation. 

Some of our notable work is the educational content we’ve created for BBC Bitesize, our work on Dr. Who: The Macra Terror, as well as our work on Kit & Pup which was commissioned by BBC Worldwide and CBeebies. 

We have a second wing of the company, called Farside Features, which specializes in creating adult drama animation. In total, we’re about 40 artists working across Sun & Moon and Farside. 

Could you share a bit about your animation career trajectories, and how you found yourself working at Sun & Moon Studios?

Nia: I’m originally from the US, so that’s where I got my start working in production. My very first job in animation was in 2015, at Renegade Animation, as a production assistant. There, I got to work on the Tom and Jerry Show for Warner Bros. Animation, which was amazing. It wasn’t long before I worked my way up to being a production coordinator. Following that, I jumped to Dreamworks Animation for about a year as a production coordinator, working on The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants for Netflix. 

In 2019, I decided to make a big change and move to the UK. I’ve always been a big fan of the UK’s animation, I saw that the industry was growing and I really wanted to be a part of it. By January 2020, I’d found my way to Sun & Moon and I’ve been here ever since. Last year, I got my first opportunity to write and direct something of my own, and that was Timeless Gifts!

Dan: I studied at the Bristol School of Animation, and while I was there Louis and Dylan came and gave a talk about character design. I really wanted work experience, so I went up to them to introduce myself and chat. A few emails and a year later, I did my two weeks of work experience animating dinosaurs with them!

When I came to the end of my course, there was an internship program available. I reached out to Sun & Moon and explained that if they joined the internship program, they could hire me on as an intern for a good value day rate. So that’s what they did! 

I did the internship, and when I graduated I freelanced for Sun & Moon for a little bit, before joining the studio full time. I’ve been at Sun & Moon ever since. I’m the longest serving employee at the studio, and so I’ve had the pleasure of seeing how the studio has grown over the last decade.

Could you share a bit about Sun & Moon studio’s approach to the work week?

Dan: Sun & Moon has always had a bit of a shorter work week at 35 hours. The goal of this has been to keep the studio employee focused. We find that a shorter work week keeps people at the studio happy, relaxed, and also motivated. Because the 35 hour work week has worked so well, we’re actually now giving a 32 hour work week a try!

Nia: I find that the shortened work week makes such a difference. It helps with maintaining work life balance. And, we also have flexibility in what hours of the day we work. For example, you can work from 10 AM to 6 PM if that’s better for you.

Sun & Moon released Timeless Gifts last year around the holidays. Could you tell me what the short film is about? 

Nia: Timeless Gifts tells the story of a young girl named Foti, who wanted a flashy, beautiful bike for Christmas. But instead, she received a telescope. We see Foti grow up into an adult, and then go back in time to give herself that bicycle she had dreamed of. But when she arrives back in time, she ends up giving the bicycle to the neighbor girl who lives across the street, and doesn’t have any gifts. 

The question that inspired the premise of the film was “if you were to give your younger self a gift, what would it be?” This question came up because, especially throughout the pandemic, I spent time reflecting on my younger self. I had that experience as a kid, which I’m sure many of us have had, of wanting specific gifts but not receiving them. I think it’s a common feeling for kids to want what they don’t have.

There are three core characters in the film. How did you develop these characters, and what went into their designs? 

Nia: Yes, in the film we see Foti as a young girl and as an adult woman. And we see the neighbor girl. I’m a huge fan of anime, and anime definitely inspired the look and feel of the film, including the characters. Aside from that influence, Foti is based somewhat off of me and my childhood. 

I gave Laura Perkins, who did the character designs, a lot of free reign. I wanted her to have fun experimenting with things like different shapes. For example, you might notice that the neighbor girl has a rounder shape whereas Foti contains straighter lines. 

In seeing Timeless Gifts, it looks like a couple different animation styles were used. What styles did you use, and what prompted the mixture? 

Dan: Like Nia mentioned, we were going for an anime, hand drawn look. We wanted to nail that style immediately. Nia and co-director Louis Jones' worked with Sam Shaw from the start to set the tone when it came to Sam’s animatic and background designs throughout the rest of the short. 

All the characters were fully rigged characters, but we made sure we were moving the character in a hand drawn style; without relying on the rig for the animation. For some of the more complex shots we didn’t animate using the rig at all. Instead, we did a hand drawn rough pass, and then used the rig to do quick cleanup on the shots. Beatrice Lorén helped me with animation and was in charge of the beginning and end sequences in the film.

The honest answer about the variety of styles we used though? It was a budget decision. You’ll notice a scene in the first half of the film that shows Foti as she’s growing up. The animation in that sequence was Louis' suggestion and is very simplified, because we needed to show a short chunk of Foti’s life, super fast, and without breaking our budget. Rather than creating lavish backgrounds for the transition scene, we switched to a varied style approach. 

Although this choice was originally due to budget constraints, I think it actually made for a really beautiful sequence in the film. The change in style matches the pace of the film, and signals to the audience that now we’re fast forwarding through time. 

That sequence also helps with the storytelling. It allowed us to cram a lot of narrative into a short amount of time, but it also reflects the development of Foti. At the start of the sequence, the animation has a very kids hand drawing look to it, to signal that Foti is young, but as the sequence progresses, the style becomes more artistic, signalling her learning and growth. The animation becomes more sure of itself, just like Foti does. 

What message do you hope viewers take away with them after seeing Timeless Gifts? 

Nia: I hope one of the messages viewers takeaway is to not be quick to make assumptions about someone's life. You don’t know everyone's story, and so it’s important to treat every person with kindness, and appreciate what you have in front of you right now. And, I know it’s hard, try not to compare yourself to others too much. 

Dan: I like seeing the growth of the main character in Timeless Gifts. Her being able to relive the same moment in time, but see it from a different perspective, is a really relatable human experience. We all have moments in our lives that we reflect on differently as we get older. 

Are there any upcoming projects at Sun & Moon that you’d like to tease or talk about? 

Nia: We will definitely be re-promoting Timeless Gifts throughout the holiday season this year! We also have a project coming from Farside Features called Blood of Camelot. And Sun & Moon is working on two IPs; one that we can’t talk about quite yet, and a short film called Passenger which is currently selected for development by Ffilm Cymru Wales. 

Dan: Yes. I’ll add that we have a new short film that we will be releasing soon that has some dragons in it! Stay tuned. 

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• Interested in working with the team at Sun & Moon Studios? The studio is making a list of applicants and checking it twice on their careers page.
• Interested in improving your production skills for the new year? Toon Boom offers instructor-led online Training Courses on workflows for cutout animation, paperless animation, rigging, compositing and animation for game development.