During the Nickel 48-Hour Sci-Fi film challenge 2022 (a challenge to make a short sci-fi film in 48 hours), I worked on “Meet the Creatures,” an animated short about aliens and love and awkward dinners and prejudice.
Here’s some “behind the scenes” pics, including the storyboards I did while conceptualizing this project and some other stuff!
Fun to see what changed and what stayed the same.
For example, the aliens in the storyboards have mouths. I cut them for, uh, artistic purposes – certainly not because it took too much time to animate!
That dinner table scene looks pretty close to the final product tho.
This post is an artefact. Originally started in 2022, it has taken me 4 years to publish. Just sitting in drafts for four years. In that time, I finished the challenge film mentioned above and submitted it to several festivals and some of them accepted it. You can watch it on Highs Below Zero (currently hosted on YouTube).
I also wrote a play, made another short, drew a comic, changed careers, did a lot of adult stuff, and hmmm four years is a long time
I’m getting better at finishing and this film was part of that.
The Nickel has a new Sci Fi challenge out now. Good luck to the participants — it’s fun to make art, and the challenges are a good impetus to get stuff done.
Sign Up for the 2026 challenge: https://nickelfestival.com/challenges/diyscifi