Stephen Pham

Night Job

Night Job is a single channel, 2D Digital narrative animation about a fictional story; based on the student’s experiences and struggles of studying at OCAD University. It touches on themes of mental health and the effects of stress and insomnia and how it can cause physical and mental illness within workers. It is also a message about crunch culture within the workforce where laborers would be overworked and receive the undeserved amount of payments as well as art schools encouraging this type of behavior to push those people into these same areas. Ironically, this animation was created in less than a month when the purpose was to speakup about overworking and burnout but it was this way because of technical issues.

“Night Job is a narrative-driven, single-channel 2D digital animation about my experiences and struggles of studying at OCAD University. It touches on themes of mental health and the effects of stress and insomnia and how it can cause physical and mental illness within workers. It is also a message about crunch culture within the workforce where laborers would be overworked and receive the undeserved amount of payments as well as art schools encouraging this type of behavior to push those people into these same areas. Ironically, this animation was created in less than a month when the purpose was to speak up about overworking and burnout but it was this way because of technical issues. The title “Night Job” refers to the story of the animation, where the office worker has to spend his night(s) overworking at his job to fulfill some sort of deadline. The process of this work is quite infuriating. For a few months, I spent months planning the art styles and storyboarding so that the story can be short, contained, and concise without any unnecessary scenes. I studied multiple pieces of liminal spaces to use for the project as well as to study the atmosphere for the genre that I wanted to go for. It is worth noting that this animation was created within less than a month due to technical errors resulting in having to create the entire production process. All the animations are created through Adobe Animate. The extra effects and sounds were edited in with Adobe After Effects and any assets were drawn through Paint Tool SAI. The best way to describe the tone of this piece would be by calling it a psychological thriller. The main character is put up in this grim and empty environment in isolation. He has to spend his night alone working but his mind and body are starting to get to him from all the times he’s had to repeat this schedule. Slowly he starts to see cracks in his body, visions from the corners of his eyes, and ominous sounds to give him paranoia. Nothing is actually there but he doesn’t know that, his insomnia and stress has worn him down that he is becoming insane and finally, he crumbles. The decision of choosing only monochromatic colors of white, black, and the occasional gradients. I wanted the white to represent the hollowness, emptiness, and organization of the capitalist corporate workplace, and the black to create shadows to give an ominous looming presence as well as to contrast with the light. I went into sound editing with the same intention of this genre. Music can easily influence the emotion of an artwork and I decided not to use one but instead tried to create a soundscape. I wanted to get the ambience from an office and wanted it to ramp up like if you were to experience sensory overload to emphasize the climax as the main character is breaking down.”