The Test- Out of Bounds (Animatic Clip)

The Annies nominated my work on The Test for “Outstanding Achievement, Directing”!

Here’s the animatic clip for a sequence that I’m really proud of from the episode. It was a big collaborative effort by Katie Mitroff, Hilary Florido, Rebecca Sugar and myself! The animatic was put together by our editor Lauren Hecht!

In the episode, the gems put together a hastily made dungeon for Steven to walk though- we imagined that it would function like a buggy video game. To top it all off, the gems didn’t even have time to build an outer skybox. SU is a very design intensive show, with tons of unique props and backgrounds in every episode. The Test on the other hand was deliberately limited in scope- it was very important to us that he’s traversing the same location with the same props and effects. To do more with less.

When putting together Steven’s out-of-bounds moment, I really wanted to make sure that the experience felt disorienting and haunting… In the above animatic, the soundtrack is ripped from Arcane Kids’ Bubsy 3D, which was a crew favorite at the time. In the final episode, our composers Aivi and Surrashu made the moment even better(and there’s a subtle secret hidden inside as well.)

At the end of the clip, Steven overhears a conversation that the gems are having. This is a very rare occurrence in the show and I had a blast writing & boarding it with Rebecca! We thought that Amethyst would be the only one honest enough to say “We’re bad at this” and tried to make it feel like an excruciating truth that nobody else could say- they linger in silence for so long before.

This is hands down one of my favorite episodes. The ending, boarded by Katie, is absolutely heartwarming or devastating depending on how you look at it. I feel really lucky that I got to work with such a talented crew to make it a reality.