The Vending Machine
2025 | 2D Animated Short Short Film
Directed and Produced by Dayanna C. Bradshaw
Screened at the 2025 OWL Film Festival
Software Used: Storyboard Pro, Toon Boom Harmony, Adobe After Effects
Project Overview
The Vending Machine is a 2D animated short short film following a fifteen-year-old boy who simply wants to buy a snack. However, after repeated attempts to use the vending machine, he begins to encounter increasingly unusual rejections, leading to the discovery that the machine may have a mind of its own. Blending humor with moments of tension, the film transforms an everyday interaction into an unexpected character-driven encounter.
Visual Development & Design Goals
One of the primary goals of the film was to balance comedy with an initial sense of mystery and tension. To support this, I chose a darker color palette dominated by blues and blacks, creating an ambiguous setting that could feel both familiar and slightly unsettling. Rather than placing the character in a clearly defined school hallway, I intentionally kept the environment somewhat ambiguous, allowing viewers to focus on the interaction between the boy and the vending machine.Because the vending machine serves as the film's secondary character, I designed it to communicate emotion through both lighting and on-screen graphics. Its bright interior lighting contrasts with the darker environment, immediately drawing the viewer's attention, while its digital screen displays expressive symbols and faces that convey personality and reactions throughout the film.
Sound Design Challenge: Finding sound effects that effectively balanced comedy and tension.
Solution: Experimented with multiple sounds and timings until the vending machine felt expressive without undermining the comedic tone.
Challenges & Solutions
Environment Layout Challenge: Determining where the story should take place and designing a believable yet visually interesting environment.
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Solution: Kept the location intentionally ambiguous and used lighting to establish mood while directing focus toward the characters.
Prop Design Challenge: Designing and arranging the contents of the vending machine in a way that felt realistic while remaining visually clear on screen.
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Solution: Iterated on snack placement and simplified certain items to improve readability during animation.
Character or Machine?
Although the vending machine is technically a prop, I approached it as a secondary character within the film. Because the story centers on the conflict between the boy and the machine, it was important that the audience perceive the machine as having intentions and personality rather than simply malfunctioning. To achieve this, I used the machine's bright internal lighting, expressive screen graphics, and exaggerated responses, such as displaying a red "X" when rejecting money and changing facial expressions throughout the film to communicate emotion and create a playful antagonist for the protagonist to interact with.
Storyboards & Deliverables
