Once Upon A Kitchen
Updated
Once Upon A Kitchen is a short cartoon made in Animperia: a kitchen at doomsday, a villainous moldy sandwich, an evil toaster, and four pieces of food who'd rather not be there. It has three scenes and about 15 seconds of animation, with five lip-synced voice lines, a camera that pushes in and pulls back, and a soundtrack. The clip above shows the first two scenes.
Every frame was animated, voiced and exported in Animperia's editor, in a browser tab.
The story in three scenes
1. The villain. The camera opens close on a moldy sandwich standing on a pot that pours lava, and it gloats: "It's over, losers." As the camera pulls back, the toaster next to it bursts into an evil laugh, sparks flying.
2. The heroes. Across the counter, a carton of milk, a piece of cheese, a garlic bulb and a strawberry watch the wooden spoon and spatula burn. "I don't like this," says the milk. "What are we gonna do?" asks the cheese, hiding its eyes. The camera pulls wide to the boiling sink, then pushes in on the strawberry: "We can make it."
3. The fridge. A short beat inside the fridge, where the heroes, a soda can and a head of broccoli line the shelves and blink.
The cast
| Character | Role | Line | Voice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moldy Sandwich | The villain | "It's over, losers." | A deeper voice of its own |
| Toaster | Its evil sidekick | An evil laugh | Bossy, one of the ready-made voices |
| Milk | The grump | "I don't like this." | A high voice with a little growl |
| Cheese | The worrier | "What are we gonna do?" | Squeaky, tuned with wobble and treble |
| Strawberry | The hero | "We can make it." | A higher voice of its own |
| Garlic | The quiet one | None | Not heard |
The props are objects in the library too: a socket and its cable, the stove, the pot, the lava, the sink of boiling water, a burning spoon and spatula, a fork and a rolling pin.
How it was made
Scenes on a timeline
The film is three scenes on a landscape canvas, 1920 × 1080 at 24 frames a second. Each scene is a stack of layers on a timeline: the background, a layer for each character or prop, a sound layer for each voice line, music, and a camera. The second scene alone has 25 layers.
Characters with variations
Several characters have more than one variation, all of them drawings of the same character: Milk has an angry face, the garlic and the strawberry turn to the side halfway through the second scene, and the fridge scene uses sitting versions. A keyframe switches from one variation to the next.
Moves as clips
Each character's moves are its own animations, played as clips on its row of the timeline: blinks, a run cycle and a walk cycle, a scared face, hands thrown in the air, and the cheese covering its eyes and then standing back up. Clips overlap, so a character can blink while it walks. Motion tweens carry the strawberry and the garlic across the counter.
Voices and lip sync
Each line is a recording given to the character who says it. It sits on a sound layer of its own whose clip names the speaker, such as What we gonna do · Cheese · Squeaky. Rhubarb Lip Sync timed each line, and the mouths move on the stage, while scrubbing and in the export. Each speaking character has its own set of mouth shapes, drawn in its style.
Every character speaks through a voice effect of its own, so the lines sound like a cast rather than one recording. Background noise was taken out of four of the five recordings with one click. One line plays at 1.25× speed and another at 0.89×, set in the clip's options, with the pitch kept and the mouth following.
The camera
Each scene has a camera layer with keyframes and motion tweens. The first scene starts at 456% zoom on the sandwich and pulls back to 279% to reveal the toaster. The second pushes in on the heroes, holds, pulls wide to show the sink, then pushes in on the strawberry for the last line.
Sound and export
A suspense track plays across the first two scenes, with a drum hit on top, each on its own sound layer. Export renders the scenes back to back as one MP4, with every voice, effect and the music mixed in.
Where the drawings came from
Most of the cast and the backgrounds were made with Animperia's optional AI helper, from reference pictures and descriptions, then refined in further variations. Some moves were described to it, such as the blinks and the walk cycle, and others were posed by hand, frame by frame, such as the milk's hands in the air and the cheese's scared pose. Everything in the film can be done by hand: drawing, posing, timing, voices and camera.
Make one like it
You can make a short like this in your browser:
- Read how lip sync works in Animperia, or start with the talking cartoon maker guide.
- Learn the craft behind the mouths in how to lip-sync a 2D character.
- Sign up for the beta: Animperia is free while it's in beta.