Last week of animating stories was a catch up session trying to work on film ideas so there isn't too much to upload from then, especially since I was prioritising getting my Beano pitch presentation done in time. But this week I've been doing a lot of thinking on what story to do, I ended up having to choose between four ideas that I really liked, and I'll talk them through in this post :)
1. Adapted Inuit Folktale
This is the first idea I started to develop and is based on an Inuit folktale about a woman who has lost her child but finds an abandoned polar bear cub in the wild and decides to bring him up as her own. The people around her shun this decision and think that the cub should be killed for its fur or before it grows up and becomes dangerous, leading her to have to part ways with her new son, sending him out into the wild again where he is safe from humans. Years later she is outside and struggling to get enough food for herself when her polar bear son reappears. This could be done by him providing for her the way she did him when he was young or it could be that he protects her from another predator. They rejoice at being with one another again and embrace. I'm aware that this isn't a story from my own culture, and that I would have to do a lot of research into it to do it justice, especially since I'm British and white, meaning that there's a narrative of oppression against Inuit communities connected to my own culture, so I would have to be sensitive with what I was able to change.
These are my initial sketches responses to the folktale. I like the idea of using lots of textures like chalk pastel or watercolours. Caroline Leibel's work uses a lot of artistic texturing which I enjoy and feel like it layers up the world created very believably. Her work always looks somewhat fairytale like too, so it would match a folktale.
[ Caroline Leibel's Work ]
This is a rough concept of how I'd portray the people talking about the dangers of the polar bear cub, lit up through the skin of the woman's tent. I'd want to animate the shadows in a similar morphing way to sand animation. Finally, below is a drawn up version of a sketch in my sketchbook of the two main characters coloured in how they would be in the film. I like how angular the face of the woman is, somewhat reminiscent of Cartoon Saloon's style.
2. Music Video to Brave New World by Kalandra
My concept to go with this song is a story about sirens due to the haunting "aah" sections of the song. I want it begin with a siren waiting on a rock as sailors go by trying to ignore her, until she sings, which draws them in. She devours them as sirens do in myths and legends, leaving a wrecked boat and sinister surroundings. After this scene it cuts to a woman tied up on boat with sailors jeering around her, she is pushed off and sinks towards the seabed, unable to swim. As her legs are bound together they begin to transform into a mermaid's tail as she looses her breath, and other features begin to form like gills around her neck or torso, scales along her skin etc. The siren from the beginning swims down to help her, and assists her recovery as a new siren on land. At the end of the video the sailor who pushed her off sail by again, and they both look towards it with vengeance, revealing the motivations of sirens.
There are a lot of similar stories, whether they are creative writers online or old regional myths, like the story of Blake Mere Pool for example -
"a beautiful local girl refused the affections of Joshua Linnet, a local man. Linnet, furious at being spurned falsely accused the girl of witchcraft. She was tried and sentenced to death by drowning in Blake Mere Pool.
As she drowned, with her dying breath she is said to have cursed Linnet. His body was found three days after at the side of the pool with his face bloodied and rent by claw marks. Local legend says that animals will not drink from the pool, or birds fly over, or settle on it, because the girl’s spirit turned into a mermaid and haunts the pool." - [https://folkrealmstudies.weebly.com/the-mermaid-of-blake-mere-pool-staffordshire-england.html]
I like the idea of using paper cut-out dolls to animate in a multi-plane rostrum set up with real found items and dried plants to make up the surroundings. A film that's a really good example of this is a film I've mentioned in previous blog posts, Roots of the Hidden by Elizabeth Marie Sevenoaks, which can be watched here: https://vimeo.com/65387425 but only if you are logged into Vimeo due to the privacy settings.
I like the idea of using dried plants to buildup the surroundings of the deep sea as the background gets darker and darker. I sketched up these concept pieces in Photoshop to illustrated the idea:
These first two ideas- the folktale and the siren story - are the only ones I have produced my own images for as they are the two I narrowed down to present in class for my formative. I still want to present my other two ideas as they were part of my development process and may come back in later semesters.
3. Music Video to Under Giant Trees by Agnes Obel
Agnes Obel has been a favourite musician of mine for a long time and I've always enjoyed listening to her music. All her pieces have a sort of surrounding feeling to them, and it's not hard to imagine narratives to each. The story I imagined to this one is partially inspired by the title, as I picture it set in a great forest inhabited with magical creatures, not unlike the forest in Princess Mononoke. The opening to the music video would take the viewer through the trees to see what the setting is like, until a human traveller is introduced, travelling through, interacting with the mythical creatures within as they run across their arms and around their feet. When the slow winding strings come into the song about a minute in, the creature that is the embodiment of the forest would come into view, maybe weaving through the trees, as that sound is snake-like to me, keeping an eye on the traveller without being seen by them. As the music changes again the creature reveals itself, rising up from within the forest in front of the human. They have a connection, and a mutual understanding, the human is there simply to see, not take, and they are young so although scared still curious and excited to see it. The human is helped out of the forest and grows up away from the creature, seeing from afar it slowly get polluted and wrecked by humans chopping down trees and digging it up for oil. As the music 'drains' the creature of the forest suffers, but before collapsing strikes out at those around them, leaving the land of the once-forest bare and alone. The shape of the fallen animal like a great burnt fallen tree.
[Stills from Princess Mononoke]
Our human character sees this, is heart broken, and rushes to the site despite others trying to warn them. They try their best to water the area and spread seeds. It takes times. When the music brightens once more fantastic green shoots burst from the carcass of the forest beast, blossoming with colour. The wildlife begins to grow unnaturally quickly and the forest soon has giant trees once again. The animals that lived there start to return to their habitat. The film ends with the human traveller, now much older, walking slowly through the regrown land, until they meet the creature of the woods again, who lowers their head so that they may be eye to eye. They give a warm breath into their face, gently pushing their hair back as a thank you. They both smile and it is the end of the music video.
For the part of the narrative where the creature is polluted I was imagining similar visuals to the lava sequence in the Firebird Suite of Fantasia 2000AD, although it would instead be the forest spirit rather than the volcano that was causing destruction to those around it through a need of self defence. This idea was also partially inspired by the finale of the graphic novel Nimona by Noelle Stevenson, when Nimona turns part of herself into a dragon-like demon that oozes fire and green light to protect herself from those trying to hurt her. I imagine the animal would look similar to that dragon once polluted, with burnt bark skin and unnatural colours breaking through.
I love this idea but unfortunately it is just too long for me to be able to get close to finishing. The song is over 5 minutes long and there is a lot to animate that isn't simple. It may be that I save this idea for next year, potentially as a final film if nothing else I'm passionate about arises.
4. Music Video for She by Alice Phoebe-Lou
This is the best video I could find of the song, but am not used to hearing it with the first minute, so I would probably cut it down by one minute by taking that part out. This would be another somewhat magical tale, as mythical stories are just what I'm in the mood for at the moment. This story would be centred around two women, one a young woodland nymph who is wandering through the woods and learning the land, the other a young woman who has run away from home and the pressure of the roles of a woman, as it would be set in medieval/renaissance times. As the voice of the singer repeats "she" it shows each of their stories, switching back and forth between them at each "she". The nymph explores the woods, sees people cutting down trees, generally avoids humans, and interacts with animals. The human woman stumbles through towns, steals bits and pieces here and there, including armour pieces for her to wear and protect herself, having a rough time as she is shooed away from places of work or shelter, she also ends up taking care to avoid people. It crosses between them until they meet each other in the woods, surprising both of them. They become the only people either of them have been comfortable around in a long time and there's a montage of them in each others company, the young woman pointing out what's in the nearby town from a hill, the nymph teaching her what plants are edible, and so on and so forth. Throughout the whole film, as people have been taking from the forest the nymph, who has a connection to the land, has been becoming weaker, parts of her bark-like skin flaking away, or the flowers growing in her hair wilting.
Around the 3 minute mark of the video linked, when the music is building up, is when the two of them share their first kiss. The drumming feels like the ramping up of nerves and feelings and I can imagine there being a lot of meaningful eye contact and them holding each others faces before finally kissing. They have acknowledged they are in love but they do not have much time left, the human woman tries to get her nymph to water to help her grow and heal but doesn't make it in time, or the stream they are heading to has been dammed off by humans of the town and no longer runs as it should, or the pond/lake they were headed to is dried up or polluted. At the end of the song as the music is quieter and the singer says "She said I want to go to mars" (around the 4 minute mark in the video) it is spoken by the nymph in the arms of her lover as she is falling away, maybe parts of her being taken away by the wind as the different parts of her, made from plants, fall away, leaving the woman in armour clutching the hollow space left behind, watching the leaves drift away.
I also like the idea of animating this in a similar manner to Roots of the Hidden, but instead of with paper doll puppets maybe with 2D animation that I would sandwich between two physically made layers in After Effects. I'd want it to look a little like a story book or fairy tale illustration, with lots of framing with the dried plant elements.
Kay Nielsen and John Boer's use of profile views would reappear cinematically throughout the film, I also like the use of Kay Nielsen's pairs wearing opposing colours to make them stand out from each other. John Boer's Agneta and The Sea King on the right is one of my favourite illustrations to exist, I feel like I may end up referencing it if I do the siren project too, simply because I adore it, it feels tender and alone in a pleasant way, their silhouettes are a perfect profile and the way the hair and bonnet covers both of their faces partially adds a sort of shield to the characters' experience.
Ivan Billibin's art always tends to have clear background, mid-grounds, and foregrounds, meaning that his style would translate well into a multi-plane rostrum set up with physical elements making up the surroundings.
I presented the Inuit Folktale and the Siren story for the formative and most people thought that the siren story would be better to do. Although having to write up all the ideas has made me think about all the ways I could do them all again, especially the last. There may be a way fr me to combine their stories partially, adding a level of romance to the siren, but we will see. I don't know if I'm entirely confident with the story as it is as it feels a little uninspired, and the cut to the woman on the boat after an opening section on the siren feels a little too sudden for me at the moment. I have begun developing on it visually whilst I'm considering this aspect of the film so to keep things moving.
This is just a page of exploration using watercolours, pencil, and fine liners. I really like the effect of wetting the paper entirely before adding the colours, the illustration of the gills forming looks especially effective because of this. I also really enjoy the look of the mermaid in the centre, the colours work well together and the shadowy nature of it appears appropriately dark for the current storyline. It's very inspired by Mike Mignola's distinctive shadows, whilst reminding me of Edmund Dulac's use of colours.
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