About Love Tricycle

Beau is a handsome, eligible bachelor. Bec is the girl of his dreams. Harley is her impetuous ex-boyfriend who can’t let her go. Beau is faced with a lonely summer holiday when he sees Bec passing by, and it’s love at first sight. That afternoon in the small town of Rimside, these 3 bikes find themselves in a love triangle, and when Beau and Harley clash, sparks fly. Only one of them deserves to take Bec’s handlebar.

Love Tricycle is a computer-animated short film about a love triangle between 3 bicycles. It originated in 1997, when Andrew Goode thought that bicycles might have potential as animated characters with human qualities. They stand upright, the handlebars could turn on several axes like a head, the bars themselves could be shaped like a smile or frown, brake levers could make expressions like eyebrows, or grab things like hands. They could balance and move around by themselves, and even turn their heads independently of their front wheels.

The main challenge was to make a computer-animated bike move just like a real one. After experimenting with a few different methods, Andrew found a solution for ‘riding’ a bike on a path on any surface, and then made a short test animation with a male and female bike dancing a tango. Also appearing in this animation was a skateboard-dog, and a jealous motorbike on-looker.

The eventual story of Love Tricycle was based on these same characters. The characters would not have eyes, mouths or voices, so ‘body’ language would be the key to telling the story. The characters would find themselves in a variety of situations unique to their bikes-only world.

In this bikes-only world of Rimside, there are ramps instead of stairs and racks instead of seats. As the characters are non-organic, so is their environment – trees are made of corrugated-iron leaves bolted onto metal tubing, the hills in the park are green painted concrete, shaped like ramps at a skate park. Bikes have skateboards for pets and bell-birds ring as they fly around and do ball-bearing droppings. The main threats to bikes are anything that could put them off balance or puncture their tyres, and of course that terrible disease, rust!

Love Tricycle was approved for funding assistance from the Pacific Film & Television Commission, and in late 2000, Andrew put together a team of key creatives. Russell Ladewig began drawing concepts of buildings and objects that would populate Rimside, then drew over 400 detailed storyboards which became the template for the 3D layout. Cameron Small started creating detailed designs of the film’s characters, buildings and other objects, and incorporating them in detailed concepts of the spaces which became Rimside’s stadium, street, mall and park sets. Ross McLennan would compose an original orchestral score, and John Willsteed would create the film’s sound.

As designs were approved, 3D production started with the modelling of 24 characters, 25 buildings, about 60 other objects, and the terrain of the 6 sets they would populate. Production progressed through the stages of layout, animation, shading, lighting, compositing, music and sound, until completion in June 2003.

Check out the other pages on this site for a trailer and images from the film. More detailed production notes and huge gallery of artwork is available on the Love Tricycle DVD. We hope you enjoy the film!