Square Heads: Creating One-Person Animated Feature Film in 3D

Serhan Yorganci discussed the challenges he faced when working alone.

Making an animated movie is never easy, but doing so alone is a gargantuan task, which Serhan Yorganci still took in order to achieve his dream.

Now, Square Heads is on Apple TV, boasting several awards and articles in animation outlets. Here's how one person managed to make it possible.

"Brave and his closest friends, Four Eyes and Freckle, burn through a small fortune online after a few careless taps, and things at home blow up fast. When Mr. Stingy, Brave’s extremely frugal father, finds out, he completely loses it. Trying to fix what they have done, Brave brings him an old watch as a present, a strange second-hand piece rumored to have something unusual about it. At first it just sits on the table and ticks like any other watch. Then, without warning, it springs to life and pulls the three kids out of their normal routine and into a world that feels familiar, but slightly wrong from the start.

"Once they arrive, none of the rules they know seem to apply. They end up under the control of Ruhi, a strict and demanding boss who makes them work for every cent they earn. In this odd place where effort is the only thing that really counts, Brave, Four Eyes and Freckle have to stay one step ahead of Ruhi, figure out what the watch has dragged them into, and find a way back home. To escape, they have to learn that thinking clearly, sticking with the hard parts and working together can matter more than quick and easy money."

Yorganci didn’t start in animation – he studied Media and Communication Systems and spent his early years mostly writing and doing small journalism work. That's when he started thinking more seriously about storytelling.

At the same time, he enjoyed taking photos – mainly nature – and it helped him understand composition in a practical way. Yorganci was also part of his future artistic journey: he plays drums as a hobby, which helped him understand rhythm and timing.

In high school, he spent a lot of time on the computer without following a structured path. He was "just trying things, opening programs, figuring them out." Most of the time, he was learning by making mistakes, but gradually, he became familiar with different tools without planning it too much.

"Later on, when I actually started working on the film, I realized something important. Understanding filmmaking itself mattered more than focusing only on software. Even while watching films, not just 3D films, I started paying attention to simple decisions. Where the cut happens, why the camera changes during a dialogue, why a shot stays longer than expected. I think I spent more time trying to understand these choices than trying to master specific tools, and that helped me more in the long run.

"All of this only became clear to me afterwards. At the time, these interests felt separate, but they eventually came together when I started working on animation."

Square Heads began during the pandemic. Before, he had been trying to make projects in a more traditional way, talking to producers and trying to move things forward, but nothing was progressing. "After a while, I felt stuck. So I decided to stop waiting and try to build something on my own, even if I did not fully know how it would work."

Another challenge on his way was a period of disconnection from computers and production tools, and returning was not easy.

The first machine Yorganci bought for production was a laptop with a GTX 1050 GPU, but the motherboard burned out because of overheating after just two weeks.

"It was frustrating, but also part of the process. Over time, I had to understand not only software, but also the hardware side. By the end of it, I completed the film using a 3090 Ti. In a way, I had to learn that side as well, not just the creative part."

"Working alone changed everything," the artist confessed. The main difficulty was creating a way to manage the whole process from beginning to end. There was no existing system, so he had to build one step by step. This was a repetitive process: "I would try something, then realize it did not work, then change it again. This cycle repeated many times."

Over time, he built a simple workflow, usually startig with rough layout and blocking to understand the scene, the timing, and the general staging. Then followed animation, although Yorganci often went back to adjust previous steps and worked on multiple parts at the same time.

"Because I was alone, I had to keep things manageable. If something slowed me down too much, I simplified it. Not everything needed to be technically perfect. What mattered more was keeping the film moving forward."

Quality control took unexpectedly long time: "I kept checking scenes again and again. Sometimes in slow motion. I would focus on one character at a time, almost isolating them, and each time I noticed different issues. Sometimes small animation problems, sometimes timing, sometimes background details that felt slightly off. Fixing these took a lot of time, but it made the film feel more consistent in the end."

Another difficulty was physical: over time, the animator started noticing that his perception was not always reliable anymore due to the long hours spent in from of the monitor.

"Colors and exposure started to feel confusing. At times reds looked closer to pink, blacks felt more like grey. It was something I had never experienced before. In the middle of the process I switched to an IPS display, thinking it would solve it, but it did not fully fix the issue. Eventually I realized it was not just the screen, but also fatigue and looking at the same image for too long."

This made Yorganci understand the importance of another perspective: "When you spend too much time on the same scene, you lose objectivity. Something that feels right to you might not actually work. Even showing it to a friend or someone outside the process can help a lot."

Eventually, the movie took shape thanks to Blender, ZBrush, Substance 3D Painter, and Unreal Engine. Some parts worked in real time, while others followed a more traditional approach.

The creator says that it's not about the tools themselves but about whether they helped him continue: "If something became too slow or heavy, I looked for another way. That flexibility was necessary because there was no team supporting different stages."

"Discipline was probably the hardest part. When you are working alone, there is no external structure. No schedule coming from outside. You have to build your own system. Some days were productive, some were not, and I had to accept that. Breaking the work into smaller parts helped a lot. Otherwise, the idea of finishing a feature film alone feels too big."

Yorganci tried not to be too rigid, allowing the process to change and flow. In the end, the film turned out to be the result of many small steps and a lot of trial and error. "It is not based on a perfect plan. It is more about adapting, simplifying, and continuing even when things are not fully clear."

His interest in writing, photography, music, and experimenting with software contributed to the final feature eventually by helping him build the mindset that made it possible to finish the film.

This is a great example of dedication, which shows that you can produce your own movie from scratch, solo, with enough willpower.

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