Project overview
Haunted Playground responds to an animation brief about physical playgrounds gradually being replaced by online entertainment. Instead of building a conventional horror scene, I designed a bright space that looks appealing while quietly suggesting that something is wrong.
Green hills, blue sky, balloons and a red slide resemble the soft set of a childhood television programme. Yet there are no children, houses grow directly from the top of slides, doors open by themselves, swings move without force and balloons drift against the wind.
Visual direction
The project was influenced by memories of watching Teletubbies and by liminal-space imagery. Both can appear calm and friendly on the surface, yet become dreamlike through emptiness and the incorrect combination of familiar objects.
To work within limited time and computer performance, I used Blender to create low-poly models, simple materials and soft daylight. Clear silhouettes and toy-like surfaces reinforce the idea that a real place has been rearranged into children's play equipment.
Animation and atmosphere
The camera moves slowly through the environment while animated objects deliberately lack a visible cause. Tutor feedback encouraged me to push the surreal quality further. Rather than adding a horror character, I kept the unease restrained through the strange behaviour of doors, balloons and empty equipment.
The final twenty-second animation combines modelling, materials, lighting, keyframes, camera work and sound. It also showed me that atmosphere does not depend on complex models: the relationship between objects and the logic of their movement can carry the story.
