SEAGULL UNION
Seagull Union (2022) is a 2D animated short film created by a small team of students studying at Swinburne University of Technology.
The film follows the silly exploits of a group of seagulls unionizing against their boss so they can get a day off before the Footy Grand Final.
↓ watch below ↓
G’day!
I am the creator and director of Seagull Union.
The idea came from nowhere in particular but I’ve always had a fascination with Australian stories and animation. Perhaps from that the combination seagulls and footy came together.
I worked on the writing, animation and post-production. I was fortunate to have a team of talented people to work on this film and the product is due to their ability.
We had a great time making Seagull Union and I hope you’ve enjoyed it too.
Meet the Team
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Max Denishensky
Producer
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Adam Kelsey
Director
Animator, Writer
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Matt Omernik
Animator, Character Designer
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Brianna Burns
Writer, Distribution
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Dan Drechsel
Character Rigging
Seagull Union was made as our capstone Animation project in 2022 while at Swinburne University. We spent a total of six months writing, animating and editing and came back together in 2023 for another two months to polish it up.
Once we were satisfied with it’s condition we submitted Seagull Union to film festivals. It was accepted into the Melbourne International Animation Festival (MIAF) as part of their ‘Australian Student Showcase’. It was amazing to hear an audience of industry peers laugh at our jokes!
We were inspired by satire shows and news/current affairs such as Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell, ABC News and the Office. Throughout the writing process we wanted the film to appear and feel Australian. Our characters are a mixture of parody and reference, for example ‘Sarah Birdson’ is based on the host of the 7:30 Report; Sarah Ferguson. Gazza and Shano are loosely based on shared experience with Aussie larrikins and ‘boguns’.
Boss was the surprise favourite character of whole crew, he was by far the most fun to write and animate for and we loved putting him in worse and worse situations.
Maybe one day the Seagull Party will return.
The film was created with ToonBoom Harmony and Adobe software. We used a combination of character rigs, 2D animation and live backgrounds. Our voice talent were locals and connections we had made during study who volunteered to be part of the project.
The story is set on St. Kilda Beach in Melbourne’s south east and we aimed to film on location. Thank you to Yarra Council for accepting our permit application. Other locations were rooms and places around Swinburne’s Hawthorn campus that we were familiar with.
