“No Man Is An Island” is a San Diego State University student film production. Five animators were commissioned to each create a 3-6 second animated segment of the film. The film features John Dunne, an ordinary man who was diagnosed with cancer, and follows the next 24 hours dealing with the thoughts and imaginations realizing his mortality. The film is produced as a live action sequence with his imaginations as mini animated sequences.
My segment, Office Zombies, was assigned to illustrate the scene where Dunne decides not to go to work, and imagines his office as an incredibly dull and dreary workspace run by zombies. My goal for this project was to illustrate the internal emotions of real people at work, represented by zombie figures. My research was inspired by the Walking Dead, the book How to Draw Chilling Monsters, Zombies, and Vampires, and a collective survey of my peers about their workspace habits and common frustrations. I combined these inspirations with our assistant director’s decisions for this particular scene, which were to create the animation in black and white, and take place in extremely disheveled office cubicles.