How it was made

Paper Boat was planned and made in Reverie from an idea to a finished film: a story bible, a cast of three (young Ada, old Ada and the boat itself, which has its own reference portrait so it stays the same object in every shot), and a storyboard of three scenes.

The journey is eight shots that play as one camera move. Each shot after the first is a continuation: it starts on the last frame of the shot before, so the boat, the water and the camera carry straight through the cut. Every shot was checked frame by frame before the next was built on it, and where a model lost the boat or invented something, the shot was redone with an end frame showing exactly where it had to land.

The score was composed in Reverie too, with Google’s Lyria: one brief, its sections timed to the shots’ start times, so the music turns where the film turns.

The shots

1. 

   01The fold

   Small hands crease a crayon drawing into a paper boat at a rainy window.

2. 

   02Into the gutter

   At dusk she sets it on the rushing gutter; the camera drops to water level and races after it.

3. 

   03The storm drain

   It spins, bumps the kerb and is swept through the drain bars, the camera plunging after it.

4. 

   04Out to the river

   Through the dark tunnel to a disc of daylight, and out onto a wide, misty river.

5. 

   05Over the falls

   Rapids, then the lip of a towering waterfall; the camera dives with it.

6. 

   06The ocean storm

   The plunge levels out into a night ocean, waves rising, lightning splitting the sky.

7. 

   07The polar night

   Silence: ice floes, northern lights, frost creeping over the paper.

8. 

   08Landfall

   Dawn, a calm sea, and a small wave carries it up onto the sand.

9. 

   09Someone finds it

   An old woman in a faded yellow raincoat walks into frame and kneels.

10. 

    10The drawing

    Weathered hands unfold it: the crayon sun and lighthouse, faded but there.

11. 

    11The lighthouse

    Her smile, and on the headland behind her, the lighthouse she drew.

The score

Composed in Reverie’s audio panel from one brief, with each section timed to a shot:

Intimate cinematic orchestral score… [0:00–0:06] solo felt piano by a rainy window, a simple four-note motif. [0:06–0:20] pizzicato strings join; the motif quickens down the gutter and into the drain. [0:20–0:31] warm strings and clarinet as it emerges onto the river. [0:31–0:39] the waterfall plunge: string ostinato, timpani, brass — the peak. [0:39–0:47] sudden hush: celesta and high strings, the polar night. [0:47–0:58] dawn: cello and piano bring the motif back. [0:58–1:12] the reveal: the opening motif restated, bittersweet, ending on a soft piano chord.