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The Character Group

These characters are the friends and family of the main character and contrast to the greyish blue tones of the office. The strong use of green in Nora's characterisation, can suggest the main character's envy of her whilst Judy's pink background and flirtatious wink emphasises the main character's jaded lifestyle.

Main Character Design

The Character turnaround displays the main character from key animating angles to help guide the process and ensure the character remains on-model. Dark circles under her eyes highlight a level of prolonged and continuous exhaustion, whilst her posture underscores her reserved and timid personality.

Walking in a Snowy Night

This screenshot, approximately a third of the way through the animation, is the only scene the main character leaves the office. The night sky and snow forecasts a prophetic fallacy of silence, loneliness and darkness as she is to smothered by an environment of inescapable work.

In the Restaurant

The final screenshot presents Nora (left) & Judy (right), friends of the main character, waiting for her arrival in a restaurant. The colours contrast with the dimly-lit snow covered sidewalks outside, with warmth oozing out of the saturated colours, and facial expressions.

Huiying Zhao

Huiying is a Chinese student preparing to enter the world of work, using animation to reflect on how China's 996 culture may effect herself and peers.

In China, some companies are exploiting employees by coercing them to work from 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week, which gives rise to the name of the destructive 996 work culture. Though the practice is illegal, many employees struggle to escape the oppression, as they fear the financial and social consequences of whistleblowing or seeking alternative employment. Through the animation, 996, Huiying hopes to encourage Chinese employees to stand up to corporate greed whilst raising awareness of how work cultures differ globally. This page displays stills from the animated short that was produced using After Effects. In completing this project, Huiying has focused her interests of video design, animation and interactive videos, for a positive cause that will give her the experience to develop into a short film director.

Major project

996 Won't Work