Meet the Student Duo Behind Award-Winning Short, “Period Drama”

While a lighthearted cartoon about menstruation might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think "period piece," that's precisely what filmmaking duo Lauryn Anthony and Anushka Tina Nair sought to achieve with their aptly-named, award-winning animated short, Period Drama. Set in the Victorian-era, the short follows eleven-year old girl Georgina Crimsworth on the night she gets her first period. Panic ensues when she finds blood on her sheets, leading to a night of panic, hi-jinx, and self-growth. she spirals into fear imaging what's going to happen to her body."


Having swept judges away at competitions around the world, including best student film at SIGGRAPH Asia 2022, we decided to catch up with the creative duo to learn more about how the film came to be and the pivotal role of Autodesk software throughout their production.

Eddie Paz, article - Meet the Student Duo Behind Award-Winning Short, “Period Drama”
Pictured: Directors Lauryn Anthony (left) and Anushka Tina Nair (right)

Could you please introduce yourselves?


Anushka: I'm Anushka Tina Nair, originally from Chicago. I'm a Modeling Artist in Blizzard Entertainment's award-winning Cinematics department, contributing to titles such as Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Diablo. On my own time, I love to write, research classic Hollywood and queer history, and spend time with my cat.


Lauryn: I'm Lauryn Anthony, born and raised in Wisconsin. Since graduation, I've been a Lighting/Compositing Artist at ICON Creative Studio, working on Young Jedi Adventures. I love to write, watch classic films, draw, and explore local museums in my free time.


In addition to winning the best student film at SIGGRAPH Asia, our film Period Drama was also the only animated finalist from the USA at the Student Academy Awards in 2022. The film also won the Cannes and New York Indie Shorts Awards and screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival, to name a few of our proud achievements!


How did you first get started in 3D?


A & L: Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, was our first introduction to 3D and to the CG pipeline. We both chose to attend this school because of our interest in animated content and the animation industry as a whole. The two of us met at Ringling as roommates in our freshman year!


The internationally renowned Computer Animation program at Ringling threw us headfirst into the entire CG pipeline. We learned modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, simulation, fx, lighting, rendering, and compositing. And to ensure we had a strong understanding of the entire filmmaking process, we were also expected to storyboard and develop our own concept art. Every year leading up to our senior thesis project, we made 10-30 second animated shorts from the ground up. We were trained not only to be artists but also to be writer-directors.

Eddie Paz, article - Meet the Student Duo Behind Award-Winning Short, “Period Drama”
Still from "Period Drama"

Congratulations on winning the best student film at SIGGRAPH Asia for Period Drama! What do you think made this film so unique to the jury?


A & L: Thank you! From a technical point of view, the scope of Period Drama was incredibly unique for an animated short: 6 individual rigs (one of which had eight variations), 12 environments, and 49 unique lighting set-ups - all in 2 minutes. And that's not to mention all the cloth simulation, fire, Maya fluids, bullet physics, MASH networks, unique model blendshapes, rigged xGen, and nConstraints. This thing was a beast!


But beyond the technical, we're also touching on seldom-represented themes. Period Drama is about something half the world's population experiences but is rarely discussed. Although we drew upon our own experiences and feelings, the overall story is one that many young people have gone through - and, therefore, is easy to relate to. Menstruation isn't often discussed but showing it in a comedic way makes it easier to confront.

Eddie Paz, article - Meet the Student Duo Behind Award-Winning Short, “Period Drama”
Still from "Period Drama"

Where did the idea for Period Drama come from?


A & L: The idea of making Period Drama a gothic period piece came from our mutual love of period dramas. The themes of repression and horror from gothic fiction relate to the feeling of when you're growing up and don't have the knowledge to fully understand what's going on with your changing body and emotions.


Fun fact: we came up with the title first! Anushka said, "Wouldn't it be funny if we made a period piece about periods?" She was joking, but I kept just the words "period drama" in my notes to myself for weeks until the basic premise of the short suddenly popped into my head. I (Lauryn) pitched the idea to Anushka, and we came up with the outline in just a few hours.


How long was the production process?


A & L: In total, we worked on this film for a little under a year. Pre-production (storyboarding and visual development) was around two months, and production took about nine months and included modeling, texturing, rigging and blendshapes, animating, simulation, FX, lighting, rendering, and compositing. We each completed half of every aspect and did everything ourselves, except for music and sound - which the talented Amanda Duran and AudioBrew completed - and voice acting, which was provided by the exceptional Joanne Lichtenstein, Bekka Goldstein, and Olivia Coucci.

"We followed the traditional workflow of a VFX studio - locking down an airtight animatic and final concept art first. Then we went down the pipeline and worked towards milestones for our film."

Eddie Paz, article - Meet the Student Duo Behind Award-Winning Short, “Period Drama”
Eddie Paz, article - Meet the Student Duo Behind Award-Winning Short, “Period Drama”

What was your workflow like making this film? Why did you gravitate toward Maya? Which features proved most beneficial for the type of animation you were creating here?


A & L: We followed the traditional workflow of a VFX studio - locking down an airtight animatic and final concept art first. Then we went down the pipeline and worked towards milestones for our film.


The first milestone was for Modeling, where we presented our finalized modeled and textured characters and our environment models through the tentative shot cameras. Next was the Rig, Blendshape, and Layout pass, where we presented our characters through a rigorous facial blend test. We also presented the full film in its initial animation blocking pass (1 to 3 poses per shot) with all finalized shot cameras.


The following milestones were the First and Second Animation Passes, which demanded properly splined animation that adhered to all thirteen principles and included lip sync. We included initial cloth simulation, too, as some of our shots called for a character handling bed sheets. Then we did First Pass Lighting, which required final animation, cloth and hair simulation, and a rendered frame per unique lighting set-up. And the very final milestone, of course, was our fully rendered film, complete with FX, compositing, final editing, and all!


Maya is what we were used to, as we'd been trained to use it over our entire Ringling education, so of course, we used it to create Period Drama. Given all the needs of our film, it was crucial to have the blend shape, rigging and sim, xGen, nCloth, nConstraints, Maya fluids, bullet physics, and MASH capabilities that Maya had to offer!


You rendered the film using Arnold. How does Arnold compare to other renderers in your experience?


A & L: Besides Arnold, we've also worked with Redshift. Our school had Arnold licenses at our disposal, so that's the primary reason we used them for our film. But we immediately loved the ease of Arnold shaders and assessing noise! Beyond that, Arnold's ability to render xGen and sim cache files are second to none, which was ideal given the technical demands of Period Drama.

What are some of your inspirations?


A & L: Period Drama specifically was heavily inspired by the color palettes and lighting of The Corpse Bride and Brave, as well as the classic design language of Tangled and Frozen. Live-action design references for this film include Crimson Peak, The Innocents (1961), Jane Eyre (2011), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.


But regarding us as individual creatives - while we watch plenty of contemporary films and TV, we both have a penchant for media from or taking place in the past. We give each other recommendations on classic literature and old Hollywood movies all the time. Of course, there's a ton of appeal in the costumes and sets of the periods depicted, but we also find it interesting how stories can be products of the time they're portraying while fundamental human emotions behind them transcend time. (Some of our favorite creatives we look up to for making art in this vein include Autumn de Wilde, Greta Gerwig, and Amy Sherman Palladino!)


What's next in store for you two?


A & L: We definitely found long-time collaborators in each other. We still love to ideate and write together regularly. There are a lot of excited folks in entertainment knocking on our door - so who knows... maybe this isn't the last of Period Drama!

Eddie Paz, article - Meet the Student Duo Behind Award-Winning Short, “Period Drama”
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