This week, I continued refining the project’s narrative structure by roughly sketching and developing the three key scenes with the essential objects that form the teddy bear’s journey through time. These sketches allowed me to explore the visual progression of the story, the emotional tone of each environment, and the transitions between the bear’s different life stages.
The three environments were designed to represent different moments in the object’s life. The first scene focuses on childhood comfort and imagination through a pillow fort environment. The second scene shifts towards adolescence, using a shelf filled with personal objects, books, magazines, and keepsakes to communicate the passage of time. The final scene introduces a new child and a new beginning, suggesting that the teddy bear’s emotional journey continues beyond its original owner.
As this project is fundamentally experimental, I also spent time exploring different visual directions before committing to a final aesthetic. Rather than moving directly from sketch to production, I treated this stage as a process of visual research and discovery.
Using the sketches as a foundation, I generated and evaluated multiple stylistic variations, experimenting with different levels of realism, stylisation, atmosphere, lighting, materials, colour treatment, and environmental storytelling. The objective was to identify a visual language that could support the project’s themes of memory, attachment, nostalgia, and continuity.
Throughout this process, I discovered that highly realistic environments often felt too literal, while more illustrative approaches reduced the sense of physical presence that is central to the teddy bear as an object. Through continuous experimentation, I gradually developed a visual style that sits between realism and illustration.
I began describing this direction as “cartoony without being cartoon”. Forms are simplified, edges softened, and proportions subtly exaggerated, creating environments that feel like remembered spaces rather than exact recreations of reality. This approach helps reinforce the emotional nature of memory while maintaining a believable physical world.
The visual language also evolves across the three scenes. The pillow fort environment feels warm, playful, and protective. The adolescent bedroom becomes quieter and more reflective, focusing on stored memories and personal growth. Finally, the new child’s room reintroduces a sense of youthful energy while maintaining visual continuity with the earlier environments.
Styleframe Scene 1 inspiration
Styleframe Scene 2 inspiration
Styleframe Scene 3 inspiration
An important aspect of this stage was understanding that the styleframes are not intended to function as exact representations of the final film. Instead, they act as visual anchors that establish the project’s artistic direction, atmosphere, emotional tone, and design language.
As an experimental project, Held Together remains open to discovery throughout production. The environments, materials, lighting, animation, and memory visualisation elements will continue to evolve as technical tests and creative experimentation are carried out. The purpose of the styleframes is therefore not to lock the project into a fixed outcome, but to provide a clear visual framework that can guide future decision-making while still allowing room for exploration and refinement.
This iterative process has been particularly valuable, as it has allowed me to test multiple visual possibilities before committing to production. The experimentation carried out during this phase has helped identify the emotional qualities that feel most appropriate for the project: warmth, nostalgia, softness, continuity, and the feeling of memories embedded within everyday objects.