The Puub’e Gift: Designing and Producing a 2D Animated Short Film through Visual Storytelling
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37134/trij.vol2.1.7.2026Keywords:
2D Animation, Visual Storytelling, Family Bonds, SDG 4 Quality EducationAbstract
2D animation is a creative medium that combines visual design, movement, sound and storytelling to communicate values in a form that can be understood by young audiences. This paper presents the design and production of The Puub’e Gift, a diploma-level 2D animated short film intended to portray love, empathy and family bonds through visual storytelling. The objective of this project is to design and produce a 2D animated short film entitled The Puub’e Gift that authentically portrays the values of love, empathy and family bonds through visual storytelling. A creative production approach was applied through three main phases: pre-production, production and post-production. The pre-production phase involved idea development, target audience identification, scriptwriting, character design and storyboard planning. The production phase focused on asset creation, animation, colour, lighting and composition, while the post-production phase involved editing, audio synchronization, sound design and final rendering. The main production findings indicate that expressive character design, contrastive colour and lighting composition, and controlled scene pacing were the most significant visual storytelling elements in supporting the project objective. Character expressions and protective gestures were used to represent empathy and care, warmer tones were applied to suggest affection and family connection, and darker or cooler tones were used to separate conflict from emotional comfort. The final output is a completed 2D animated short film supported by production materials and technical workflow documentation.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Muhammad Fazrulhelmi Ahmad, Nagginah Krishna Moorthy, Alia Ameera Safiyah Md Fauzan, Muhammad Afif Danial Johan, Suhaila Basar (Author)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
