april 2025 (WIP)
Animation film design
by default
By Default is a short animated film that explores the numbing monotony of modern-day labour through the lives of a janitor, a security guard, and an office employee. Trapped in repetitive, thankless routines, their days unfold like clockwork- predictable, mechanical, and devoid of personal agency.
Concept
This film is rooted in the exploration of labour under modern capitalist systems, specifically, how repetitive, non-creative work can lead to a deep sense of alienation from the self and others. Drawing from Karl Marx’s theory of alienation, it examines how individuals in low-agency roles often lose touch with their identities, reduced to functions within a larger, indifferent machine. The film reflects on what happens when the rhythms of daily life are dictated not by personal will but by institutional expectations, when work becomes life, and life becomes default.
“The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him.”
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
research
Building on this theory, I also explored how art and creativity respond to such systems, which involved looking into avant-garde movements and artists like Diego Rivera and Picasso, who challenged capitalist norms through their work.
"The darkening of the world makes the irrationality of art rational: radically darkened art.”
Theodor W. Adorno
Design process
Visually, the film draws heavily from Adult Swim’s character design, the glitch motif from “Come and Learn with Pibby,” and the rough, expressive animation style of works like “La Café”, creating a hybrid aesthetic that reflects both the rigidity and distortion of the worker's internal conflict.
The process began with storyboarding and creating rough animatics to map out key scenes and understand the film’s pacing and rhythm.
All visual elements including character face and body profiles, props (such as alarm clocks, mops, buckets, and security wands), and illustrated backgrounds were created in Procreate. Frame-by-frame animations were also hand-drawn in Procreate to retain a raw, expressive quality.
The full animation was then composited and timed in Adobe After Effects, where all motion, glitch effects, and sound design were added. The soundscape, including ambient loops and distortion effects, was layered in After Effects to heighten the film’s surreal, repetitive atmosphere.
