Over the last week I have been really struggling with this module, I haven't been able to further my idea in a way that satisfies me and thinking about gender identity, especially my own, in such depth has had somewhat a negative effect on me, I've found it pretty hard to work on anything not just this project. I did make some progress on my robot film after 10x10x22 but I have ended up changing my idea as it was a) too long and b) involved too much considering how to portray gender struggles without directly telling the viewer. I'll show what progress I did make before I move onto what I am actually planning to do, as I spent time on it even if it wont come to anything.
I had a final robot design that I was happy with, the head was rectangular with eyebrows that could move up and down sort of like the levers on a toaster, and big round eyes like the dials on an old radio or tv. I liked the arms being slightly too long as the robot goes around scavenging through rubbish piles so having a good reach made sense. I also decided that the removable breasts should just be two spheres attached to the chest. There's also a good lot of space to play about with cords, wires, panels and rivets to make them look a little worse for ware.
I made a flowchart of the plot I wanted to follow, going through the introduction of the robot on the rubbish piles, showing the place they live, and portraying how they live day to day scavenging for parts to make their body feel better to them. The most in depth scene is when the robot calls up a help line to get assistance with malfunctioning robots. They talk to the person on the other side of the phone as if they own a robot themselves and describe how they feel about their body as if it is a fault. It ends when they call a line that addresses the fact that it isn't a fault and that there are others out there that experience it, so the robot leaves their little hut to go find the others like them. I typed up a script as well, knowing full well that it was already to long and complicated a narrative, I thought if I had the full version of it I would be able to shorten it down more effectively. The plan was going to be to make a full animatic and then animate only the most important scenes.
I also began to vaguely storyboard the script but ended up giving up. I just didn't feel the plot and I had to keep going over and over all the negative stuff in it so it was just draining me. I played around with a more abstract exploration of gender that could be one in claymation, where the character would end up transforming into different creature at some point in the film, but I didn't enjoy it as much, I wanted there t be a stronger parallel with something inhuman than that. I turned back to making a mind map to try to work out what I was going to do.
I figured that I could keep the gender idea as long as I didn't have to do as much translation between concepts to actions, even though showing a story can be more effective than telling it was the best route for me to create something quicker and keeping me from getting too stuck in it. I thought that using the analogy of a werewolf was effective, and I found it easier to get into as one of my favourite films is Wolfwalkers and I've been enjoying a webcomic about a werewolf called After Dark on Webtoon.
I did some research into the portrayal of werewolves to get an idea of what sort of design I could do, this went from films and tv, to books and comics, like the one mentioned before.
The Werewolf from American Werewolf in London is iconic and I've definitely been considering the transformation scene as a point of reference, but I really like the design of the werewolf in After Dark, it has an uncanny quality between wolf and human. I also adore the creature design in the Harry Potter films, and the design of Remus Lupin as a wolf is one of my favourite designs in any media, it properly terrified me as a kid, which usually means the artists did a good job.
These are some initial sketches I've done, exploring different werewolf shapes and poses. For the narrative I simply wrote out what came to my mind first, looking back at the list of parallels I wrote out before, it became sort of poem-like. I wrote it out and did vague storyboards as I went along with both of them, and wrote out a slightly changed version of the 'script' afterwards to make my animatic to.
I then went on to create the animatic, which I put some music to and wrote the script out as subtitles. I did this because I tried making a recording of myself to go over it but it didn't have the pacing I wanted and I felt it needed a better voice for it to make the right effect. I figured that being able to read it in your mind would resonate more than hearing a low quality recording of someone who doesn't know how to perform the lines with effect.
I'm pretty happy with the animatic, I feel like it has impact, which the music helps with a lot. I went through quite a few different pieces of music to see what would fit and ended up on Waltzing in the Ashes by Radical Face. It times itself pretty well with the animatic and keeps the correct tone throughout.
For the shot where the computers are scrolling through comments I used actual screenshots from Quora, from when I was trying to find out what percentage of people were non-binary or trans. For the fake werewolf ones I translated a real life comment on somebody's opinion of non-binary into being about werewolves. I collected a few screenshots, some from the question 'what percentage of people are non-binary', and some from suggested questions. The answers vary from saying non-binary identities are not real to people replying to young users starting to think about their gender identity to not kill themselves like other commenters suggested. There are a few explaining aspects of non-binary life, or offering support where question askers are struggling to find any, too. Filled me with sadness and hope.
Real fun to go looking for statistics and instead find people debating if your existence is valid or not. Riled up enough feelings to put it in the film though, most likely will reference them in my essay too.
I wanted to make this in claymation as the transformation could be really fun to make as well as look pretty powerful if done right, but I also think that charcoal could work well too as I ended up doing the animatic in that sort of style but digitally.
I watched the making of Love Me, Fear Me by Veronica Solomon, it's such a beautiful film that exhibits how wonderfully clay can merge, flow and change in animation, which is exactly what I want to be able to do with my werewolf. Because of this I'm considering the possibility of making it upright, rather than under the down-shooter like I made my claymation during 10x10x22. It will be easier to make human-shaped characters with a wire armature inside. Having it upright will make the transformation look really dynamic too, but I could still animate the armatured clay puppet on a pane of glass under a down-shooter, as it would probably save some time.
(The character construction is discussed at about 3:29 in the video)
Now I have the animatic done I'm going to focus more on the essay, as some of the example films from previous are just animatics. If I have time I'll try to animate some of it, but it's likely I wont make a fully animated film. I'll probably make a basic wire armature and get some Giotto clay, or look into mixing my cheaper clay with with stuff like turpentine to soften it. Joan Gratz uses this method to create her animations which look really fluid and interesting.
Using this style could be particularly cool for the shot where the wolf shadow swirls around the human character.
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