Emerald Bay Postcard Process
“During the off-season at an island summer camp, a budding friendship between two staff members is shattered when the truth about a life-altering injury comes to light.”
Emerald Bay is a drama short film shot November 2024 on Catalina Island, with a full release coming sometime in 2025. Crowdfunding for the film launched on September 20th, and included a series of limited perks to promote bursts of support within the necessary timeframe to secure finances. This postcard was one such perk, commissioned by the film’s director Hera Hong, with the aim of encapsulating the project’s overall atmosphere and central conflict within a limited number of panels. The twist was that there was a tight turnaround time of only one week.
Development began in the form of preliminary sketches, both analog and in Procreate, containing ideas based on the film’s script, treatment, stills, and concept video. Using those resources for inspiration, I developed multiple variants and combinations of four panels in order to portray the film’s central themes. These sketches were reviewed with Hera, who provided feedback and selected her favorite visuals for use in the final product.
Once we finalized the panels, the next step was to move to adding in line art. I played around with different brushes and weights before landing on a style that felt hand drawn but still clean. With the lines approved, I moved on to base color, followed by a flatter style of shading and highlights. The color pallet was based on that of the film, emphasizing muted blues and yellows. My canvas was set to utilize the CMYK color profile, in order to optimize for print. Once colored, the desired text was inserted onto a separate layer in the image in order to play with the placement and formatting. “Forgive” and “Forget” were selected for this piece based on the central conflict of the story, prioritizing relationships vs. getting justice. Hera gave her approval, leading to the finalized postcard you see below!
