In Tutorial:
In experimental animation we have to write a 1200-1500 word research plan for what our experiments will be throughout the course, followed by the tests we make to the theme established, and finally a film knitting these tests together to demonstrate our understanding and development of the experiments.
In our first tutorial we watched through a series of experimental short films, including more modern digital 2D animation using shapes, line and colour as a main focus, Pixar sparkshorts, and films that played with aspect ratio and framing. The following films were the ones that interested me the most, however:
I liked this because it's like a reworking of Norman Mclarens' work, but with added angles and textures you don't get to see in his work. It was also a really interesting study of tone, the beginning feels almost sinister with its dull colours and forboding music, but picks up, brightens, and becomes a more rhythmic experience.
This film's main experimentation is in the aspect ratio, the screen being vertical instead of horizontal, which really opens up the sky of the landscape, and allows the compositions to be different from the norm. I really like the style that this one is animated in, and the palette is beautiful.
This is by Władysław Starewicz, the first person to create puppet animation. I was vaguely familiar with him due to his adaptation of Reynard the Fox, I've never seen it all, just clips here and there. I know that Reynard the Fox is the first puppet-animated feature film, and that it made influences on films like Fantastic Mr Fox, and the opening with the characters coming out of the book makes me think of Disney's Robin Hood intro, so his work was pretty prolific. One thing I didn't like about The Cameraman's Revenge, in this video at least, is that I'm presuming it was originally a silent film and someone has put creepy music over the top, despite the story not being sinister. Stop-motion lends itself that way often but it didn't feel fitting for the narrative. Otherwise I thought that the animation was incredibly smooth considering how old it is, and was the first of it's kind!
Exploring Other Films:
I researched more experimental films in my own time, starting with work that I was familiar with, like Jan Švankmajer's Alice. Starewicz's work is what reminded me of this film, as they're both using found objects to create puppets- in Strewicz's case he used real bugs, and in Švankmajer's case he used taxidermy, dolls, and skeletons. I am aware of his other claymation work, but they usually make me a bit uncomfortable.
This is the only video I could find with the white rabbit's awakening in high res, so it doesn't have the original audio, but that's one of my favourite pieces of animation from the film, especially when he goes from having paws to hands, and revealing the holes in his hat for his ears. The other clips are also very well animated, but the whole film is a bit unnerving. I also discovered he made a film of Faust which has some interesting design and movement in it, using marionette puppets but animating them using stop frame methods, as well as some of his claymation morphing faces.
I then explored different animated shorts I found interesting, whether they used a medium I hadn't seen used before, or used it in a way I wasn't used to. This began with Moeka Yamazaki's work.
I love the effect of the layered paper that they use in these shorts, it create a lovely layering of light and shadow with a really tactile feeling to it. They also use really simple shapes to great effect, without overly complicated silhouettes or faces.
When the Day Breaks was another short that I found really interestingly made, it seems to be rotoscoped for the most part, making the film feel like it's being filmed by a cameraman within each scene. But in addition to this the faces of each character are animated anew, making them anthropomorphic animals. I think it just makes a really cool look, especially with the sort of mucky paint and graphite aesthetic it has.
Fox And The Whale is such a beautiful film with the mixture of 2D backgrounds and its one 3D character. The style of Fox is different from the rest of the animals seen too, and he makes a distinct little 'tip tap' sound as he walks around which fits his pointed shape. I thought the cinematic appearance of this film was stunning, I feel like it's quite rare to have an animated short be shot so much like a live-action film.
Raw Data is different to the other experimental films I've picked out because it doesn't have a narrative, it's just a build-up of different visuals over the same image. I found it in an experimental animation playlist and then discovered that Jake Fried has made several films like this, all layering up with ink, gouache, coffee and white-out. This is my favourite of the ones I have watched because it manages to keep a similar composition and focus whilst still changing the image drastically throughout. I also like the music and sound effects that keep up with the movements.
Mamoon uses a styrofoam set and projected CG animation to create the film's world. I've been intrigued in the idea of projecting animation for a while and seeing it executed so well is awesome! The use of colour is powerful and the syncing of the animation and with the set, like when a character is using the stair or climbing a block, is perfect.
I've watched Negative Space before, I don't really know if it counts as experimental or not, but I wanted to look at more stop-motion shorts, and I know I enjoy this one. I like how uses the mixture of everyday visuals with a shrunken down version of the protagonist around the suitcase, especially as the car travels along the road which unzips and turns into a case. It's a very artful way of exploring two people's relationship with each other.
Felted animation has such a lovely soft look to it, so I always enjoy watching films like this. It, like Negative Space, uses a shrunk down version of the protagonist in a novel way, it is evidently a technique that works especially well with puppet animation. It enabled another exploration personal to the filmmaker.
I enjoyed looking through so many different types of films and exploring how animation can be used in different ways, and I'd love it if I had the time to try out as many things as possible, but I know that's not how this course works. I think the area that would most benefit me to experiment with is stop-motion, as I'm thinking that I want to use it to make my final film next year, and enjoy it the most.
My Potential Research Theme:
At the moment I think my experiments will centre around stop-motion expression. I have made puppets in the past but it's only been through body-language that they've been able to express themselves, so I want to explore how to create an articulated face, I felt that my lion puppet, Elio, from last semester could have done with moving eyes, and would like to make some attempts at lip-syncing too. I'd also like to include posable hair and fur, and if I have time it would be great to try different methods of hands as well, as Elio's hands could move when wrapped with thread, but unravelled and got scruffy pretty quickly.
For my current knowledge, animating faces could include replacement animation, like they use in LAIKA, claymation, like Aardman, or lip-synced like the dogs in Isle of Dogs.
When it comes to claymation I also like the idea of playing with the more abstract properties it can form, like in the film Love Me, Fear Me by Veronica Solomon, which is one of my favourite animated shorts. I'm amazed by it every time I watch it and it would be awesome if I could think about using modelling clay in a similar way.
For hair, I've used wool in the past, but with nothing in it to make it posable, just brushing it vaguely in the right direction. I know that LAIKA uses real hair with resin in it so that it becomes more slid but flexible. I've seen some films, like The Coin, make hair in one big block instead, presumably with some sort of wire rigging inside, so that you don't have to think about the individual strands of hair. I'd prefer a more detailed approach because I like creating the little woollen wigs I make.
I think in LAIKA's earlier films they used a similar system for fur as they did hair, but in Missing Link, Mr. Link's fur is made from silicone and urethane, to apparently stop the boiling you get from actual strands of hair. I think that the boiling you get from that sort of hair or fur in animation, I adds a sort of charm to it, this is present in Isle of Dogs, and in Peter and the Wolf (2006), and both look amazing. I know that the fur for these characters are individually needled into the skin of the puppet, so I probably don't have the skills or equipment required for that technique, but I still enjoy seeing it. The Little Prince uses a different method, which is with sheets of paper, often crinkled for texture.
I will do more research once I've discussed what I could explore next week, but I think I'll keep with this theme as it will be really useful for me in the future. It would be really cool if by the end of this project I could accumulate all the things I've learnt into one functioning puppet to truly illustrate the use of the experimentation.
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