Case Study
Midnight: Cat Guardian
of the Spirit World
This case study focuses on a pilot episode of Midnight: Cat Guardian of the Spirit World. When a shapeshifting teenaged girl slips into the underworld to fight off corrupted spirits, she discovers hidden abilities and an unexpected ally. Midnight, the protagonist, searches for answers to her elusive past and comes across a Spirit attack. After some circumstances that reveal that she stands the greatest chance of battling the Spirits, Midnight is conflicted with her self desires to seek answers versus staying behind to help fight off the corrupted spirits. Can Midnight balance the weight of the world on her furry-cat shoulders?
Prologue
Inspiration for this project came from reading Warriors (Erin Hunter) and exploring nature when I was younger. A lot of my work tends to feature some sort of cat-like influence, mostly due to my love for them and the fact that I always grew up with cats in our home one way or another. Fueled by childish wonder and endless imagination, the sense of exploration and discovering something unknown played heavily into the building-blocks of what the story is today. The original concept started back in 2012 under the name of Midnight Star. The premise was completely different back then, featuring Midnight sporting a Cats-Eye gem that allowed her to shift between her two forms and a more serious, level-headed, personality. Gwen was developed a year later, sporting
flashier colors and an "explosive" personality to boot; taking on the role of a hyper-active inventor that enjoyed tapping into the land-line from time-to-time to hear about the latest news. As time
went on, I wanted the story to have a more substantial plot so I ended up going back to
the drawing board.
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Recreating the characters felt like playing a game of telephone, with them communicating their true interests and personalities through a shoddy connection until they felt more like people instead of archetypes. It was no longer a process of deciding what a character was at face value, but what motivated them and and what gave them a reason to be alive and in doing so, allowed me to discover more about myself as well. A lot of Midnight's inspiration and personality can be credited to my cat Bluestar. When we adopted
her, she was feral and did not trust anyone. But over time, she gradually warmed up to me and
my siblings and became the sassiest cat I have
ever met.
Midnight is a bit of a nomad, she travels the world in search of answers to her past. Reclusive yet friendly, Midnight has a habit of biting off more than she can chew (both figuratively and literally) which gives way to her impetuous personality. Midnight never stays in one place for too long due to her feeling like she's running out of time and needs to discover the truth as soon as possible. As for Gwen, she works in a government grant program that provides funding to young geniuses that provide advancements in technology. Gwen is very driven in accomplishing her goals. She likes doing things for herself and does not want to be indebted to anyone, which makes it hard for her to have any close friends.
Concept Development
The first step to producing the animatic was figuring out the plot of the story. What was the conflict? What was driving the story? What story could I tackle in the pilot episode that was sustainable, engaging, and could have a satisfying conclusion that would leave the audience wanting more? The first draft featured Midnight trying to uncover some sacred shrines that tied into her past, discovering that she is the lost guardian of legend meant to combat the Spirits, touched more upon Gwen being an orphan, and had them meeting the main antagonist. However, all the things I wanted to touch upon felt too ambiguous for a pilot episode, and would need a more satisfying buildup before exploring those topics. After many revisions, I finally found a balance that followed a nice rhythm of action and consequence.
After finishing the script, I wanted to start fresh with redesigning the characters to reflect their personalities while retaining a hint of who they were; sort of living by the philosophy of learning from your past so you may look to the future.
When it came to designing the characters' outfits,
I had these goals in mind: Outfits must be
practical, reflect who they are, and follow a
certain color palette.
Midnight's outfit went from a simple grey vest to a more coherent outfit that fit her more adventurous aesthetic. The sporty shorts reveal that she is more athletic and the neon blue is used sparingly throughout her outfit. The lower half of her skirt forms into a slight "M" for her namesake.
Gwen, on the other hand, has more reserved colors, to show off her more lax, yet stern personality. Gwen tends to keep to herself more and focuses more on her personal work. She's a creative first and a recluse second. While Midnight is a little more lithe, Gwen's design focuses more on a triangular upper torso with a more muscular appearance. Her fighting style is based on that of a brawler; someone who heavily relives on her fists as long as she's properly equipped.
Gwen also has wings that she can call forth at will that are inspired by a barn owl. Because of this, you will find her more often than not wearing tank-tops or any other form of loose, short upper-clothing whenever she is working.
Gwen's workshop needed to be innovative, modern, and maintain a certain young-adult charm of someone living on their own. Gwen's workshop is a combination of a novice inventor modestly improving their equipment and a college
student's dorm.
However, Gwen is not entirely a shut-in. Her workshop has many glass windows and doors to not only let sunshine through, but to have a nice breeze from time-to-time.
Enter the Spirit World
The Spirit World — the flipside of the living world where the spirits of the deceased go to reside. The Spirit World harbors souls who have yet to cease existing entirely for every soul consists of energy: energy cannot be created nor destroyed for it is simply transformed into something else entirely.
Long ago, the Spirit World existed as a place for souls to live peacefully until their soul simply ceased to exist. But ever since the corruption happened, Spirits have been becoming more restless and mindless, being drawn back to the land of the living to cause chaos by some unseen force...
While more animalistic Spirits are more commonly found in the Spirit World (due to animals typically facing more cruelty), the souls of humans can be found as well the deeper you venture
into the unworldly dimension. Spirits have the ability to possess the living as long as their host is in a state of distress, having similar motives, or a strong desire to seek vengeance against those who have wronged them. But if a Spirit is especially powerful, all they would need is to possess someone with a weaker willpower than them.
Corrupted Spirits are fueled by emotion and fragments of their past memories, causing them to lash out if not properly dealt with. Midnight has the power to heal the corrupted energy plaguing them by transferring it into herself, filtering it out with her own spiritual energy making the spirit their former, docile self.
Characters & World
For the pilot episode, I envisioned a city rich in color to set the scene. While some structures show hints of a Greek influence with the open pathways and welcoming balconies, clear technological advancements shape the new modern aesthetic. This would make for a very interesting landscape for Midnight to navigate as she switches in and out of her cat-form to parkour across any hard to reach places.
Spirits are not the only antagonists that Midnight faces: She is not really on good terms with the police either! Due to the police not wanting civilians to interfere with government affairs, Midnight challenges the status quo and may unintentionally inspire well-meaning civilians into dangerous situations. Not to mention, Midnight is a minor who is currently roaming the world without adult-supervision, which is another "No-No". An important thing to note is that people with animal features are able to detect Spirits since they are not seen by the human eye. When a Spirit starts causing enough havoc, that's when everyone can see them, regardless of animal features or not.
Animatic
For years I played with the idea of creating an episode pilot for these characters, it was only until recently was I presented the opportunity to do so when taking a storyboarding class that I thought, "Hey, now is a good time as any." Working on this animatic was a grueling, yet, satisfying experience. Finally, I was seeing the characters I have been imagining for years be brought to life! But in order to do so, I was working under some hefty time constraints in order to get the twelve-minute animatic finished in time — two months and half to get it all finished along with my other classwork.
I will admit, often times I felt overwhelmed and wondered if I would be able to get it finished before the deadline. However, the utter passion I felt, and still feel for this project fueled me on to work harder, pull all-nighters, and buy a better laptop to avoid the constant program crashes in order to get it finished. Once the final credits rolled, the amount of pride I felt as I watched the finished product was astronomical.
Epilogue
Midnight: Cat Guardian of the Spirit World has a ways to go before it is ready to be animated in its entirety. But that only means I will continue to work diligently on Midnight's story until she is ready to grace audiences everywhere with her chaotic, yet charming presence. In the meantime, I would like to thank my friends and siblings who helped make this project possible by either supporting me or actively assisting me with this project. It has been a wild ride from start to finish and I hope I will continue to have their support in the future wherever my future with Midnight unfolds.
Thank you for reading, and never be afraid
to explore new things!