Emma Bott-Watermeyer
MA Graphic Arts, 2021
VIMEO LINK TO ANIMATION:
Introduction:
I am creating an experimental animation which enables me to experiment with animation as a medium as well as producing a short narrative about aspects of my creative journey.
I started off my creative journey as a young child, at school the only thing I was really good at was the Arts. Being an undiagnosed dyslexic child meant that I struggled with all my academic subjects, so art became a bit of a haven for me. Most of the time I enjoyed creating abstract, weird and unusual pieces of art that I wouldn't necessarily understand. It would reflect how I felt in school, where everything confused me. It was a way of making sense of things, before I discovered that I was dyslexic much later on.
I did not do much reading, as it has always been a big struggle, however I loved watching movies. As movies are visual, I find them easy to understand and so I took a lot of creative inspiration from them. I was never really into traditional artwork, I have always been interested in exploratory, abstract art, as I feel like I can relate to it and understand it. I enjoy abstract art as it has no rules or boundaries. Having always been very different to my peers at school, in regards to how I see the world around me, abstract art and abstract movies made sense in a lot of confusion. Now I am still very much into abstract art, especially performance based art. I take lots of motivation and inspiration from movies, especially old, classic horror movies or thrillers. So I want to create an experimental and abstract kind of animation to represent my creative journey and how I see things.
My animation is based off my creative history, therefore things that have inspired me throughout my creative journey as an artists and designer. My animation is based around the brief journey of an eye. The eye represents emotion, and in my mind is the window to the soul. This is why I thought it would be a good 'main character' to use in my animation, as eyes are known to represent emotion, etc. The eye itself comes into contact with things that have influenced and inspired my creative journey, including horror films, avant-garde films, different art movements including; surrealism, Bauhaus, Minimalism, Dada and Constructivism. I also wanted my animation to become an 'experimental animation', which meant erasing traditional animation values and concepts.
Finally, I wanted my animation to challenge the viewer. I wanted it to confront them, so what better than using an eye which looks directly a the viewers. I decided to challenge the viewers perception of reality, hence using the idea of dreams and reality as well as looking at consciousness vs unconsciousness. As a result my animation is slightly random and almost dreamlike, it reminds me of the visuals I see in my mind when I dream. This is to represent the fact that it is all a dream. This is the last aspect of my creative journey which I am including, dreams and the unconscious mind relate well to surrealism which I am highly focusing in on in this animation.
I have two versions of the same eye, one is drawn fairly roughly and the other is highly detailed. The rough version is drawn using pencil and chalk, to represent my fine art background, and the detailed one is to represent where I am at now, in my digital drawing phase. The digital drawing also represents the idea of traditional, representational fine art, which helps show the contrast between the realism of the eye and the abstraction of the shapes. The shapes represent modern art, and they attack the eye to represent how modern art such as Minimalism, constructivism, and so on, deny high art as a form of art. Therefore, trying to destroy it and take it down. It also represents how my art style has changed, as well as my inner battle between abstract art and realistic art. I used to be very interested in drawing highly detailed, representational drawings, whereas now I am more interested in raw and rough outcomes.
Research
Dream Theory
Neuropsychoanalysis, 'Freud's Model of the Mind in Sleep and Dreaming', 1999, Margaret Gilmore and Edward Nersessian
The first thought that occurred to me when asked what inspires my artwork are my dreams. When I write stories, I tend to think about the dream I had the night before (if it was interesting enough), and use that as inspiration. So I wanted to involve the concept of a dream within my work.
My animation is a play between the idea of the consciousness and the unconsciousness, and it also focuses on the idea of dreams. It plays on the question: what is real?
When we sleep, "the reduction in sensory input from the external world results in a marked decrease in the ego's ability to test reality" (Gilmore, Nersessian, 1999). This is something I thought about when making my animation. I wanted to test the idea of reality, the conscious and the unconsciousness. So by concealing the fact that the animation is a dream until the end, it basically entails that the viewers are also in a dream state. Reality is hidden from them, just like it is hidden from us when we sleep.
Dream theory also links in well with surrealism and the uncanny. Using a dream as part of my concept means that I have an artistic license to do whatever I want in my animation, it doesn't have to be realistic or in any order. My dreams are always random and weird and I want to represent that.
Animations that I like/Inspire me:
-Coraline, 2009
-Corpse Bride, 2005
-Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993
-Fantasia, 1940
Most of the animations that I really like are creepy ones, such as Coraline. I am thinking about making an eerie animation that links in my with preference for creepy animation.
'Digital Animation', 2008, Andrew Chong
"Animation can be named as modernist art- constantly developing an innovative language of expression related to other art forms, but equally, changing the phases of culture and society" (Chong, 2008). In this animation project I am attempting to link animated film with modern/abstract art. Although my animation does have a narrative, it is not as clear and as straight forward as typical animations. It is more abstract and obscure, in line with the that of abstract art. In all my work I like to transcend the boundaries of mediums, therefore I am trying to do the same with animation. "A number of alliterations between animated film and modern art, mainly in the arena of experimental animation, where many artists create exploratory non-linear, non-objective abstract works." (Chong, 2008) I am investigating experimental animation and using this as the style and direction for my animation.
"The geometry and colour in Fischinger's animations were closer to the art of painting than film. Fischinger's work exemplified a leaning towards the fine arts rather than commercial cinema" (Chong, 2008). This shows how flexible animation can be as a medium, it does not have to represent a narrative.
'Animation', 2013, Shelby Andrew
Animation Definition: "The word "Animation" derives from the Latin verb 'animare', meaning "to give life to", suggesting that the illusion of movement has been given to inanimate forms" (Andrew, 2013).
'Drawing for Animation', 2009, Paul Wells, Joanna Quinn and Les Mills
Reading this book, I found out that "observational drawing is crucial to animation", as "observation is the process of learning to see" (Wells, Quinn, Mills, 2009). When I started drawing the eyes, I used my own eyes as a reference or guide. I really focused on my eyes when I was creating the more detailed, realistic eye ball. I found that drawing from observation made me focus much more on the detail of the eye than did drawing from memory. "Observational drawing enables the artist to think carefully about what they are viewing and how they might further scrutinise the often taken for granted aspects of the material world. In drawing from direct experience, the artist can not merely describe the form, but also analyse it".(Wells, Quinn, Mills, 2009) I also found that through observational drawing, my eyes contained different colours, such as blue, green, a hint of yellow. So in my drawings I started adding different colours to the eyes and this made me think about adding in unnatural eye colours such as pink and red.
I found that observational drawing allowed me to include more detail in the eye and expand my ideas.
When it comes to perception and how I want my animation to be perceived, I was thinking about making the animation slightly weird and off balance, purposely to confuse the viewer and make them try to decipher what the animation is about. As my animation is a twist on several horror films, it would be interesting if people see this in my animation.
My animation is a complete abstraction from reality, it is not a reflection of reality, it is trying to obscure its own meaning to challenge the viewer. This has always been a major aspect of my creative development and creative interests. I love art and design that is abstract and weird and challenges the viewer. When most of what we rely on to comprehend the work is our perception and when we as the viewers are given this freedom to enjoy the work, rather than given tight and rigid boundaries.
I was thinking about how we perceive eyes. In my opinion, they are like the window to the soul, they show emotion, and they are what we look at when talking to people. They are a main source of communication. As I want to communicate emotion, especially fear and confusion and delusion in my animation, I thought that using an eye as the 'main character'' would be effective. We vicariously experience what the eye is going through. It is an abstract way of showing emotion and experience. I purposely did not include any other facial features as this may distract the viewer from the eye, or may change its perception. Furthermore, using only an eye to describe the story, makes the animation seem abstract and weird.
I am very much into weird and creepy art and design, which is why I decided to focus on horror as the main story which is the foundation for other stories which describe my creative process and history. Within this story, I represent my interest in different art movements, which have all informed my creative practise, including; DaDa, Surrealism, Bauhaus, Minimalism and suprematism.
I created a blue eye for three reasons. Firstly, I wanted it to be personal, as the animation is partly telling a story of my creative process and inspirations, so I made the eye colour in the animation, my eye colour. Secondly, the blue represents a sad emotion, which foreshadows that something bad is abut to happen. Thirdly, blue also represents water, which links to the idea of crying and/or rain.
After the eye is attacked by the shapes, it swiftly changes to red which represents danger, fear and blood. So there is a lot of representation within my animation. "Representational drawing is often a norm in animation because most animation is challenging the conventions of realism at one level and social and cultural orthodoxy at another" (Wells, Quinn, Mills, 2009).
'Experimental and Expanded Animation: New Perspectives and Practises', Vicky Smith, 2018
"We define experimental animation as forms of animation that are as far from conventional cartoons as possible." (Smith, 2018) I am very interested in experimental animation, it is something I have not come across before and I like how this style of animation tries to break free from the traditional style. It tries to find a new type of animation that isn't focused or based off a character with a strong narrative. I wanted to create an animation that is more experimental and unusual, as that links in nicely with my art and design style. I want to create a narrative which is ambiguous, and challenges the viewers, which is why I believe this is a good approach to take.
'Fundamentals of Animation', Paul Wells and Samantha Moore, 2016
The duties of an animator is to "intrigue your audience, to take them on a journey that exceeds their expectations and to leave them somewhere that made their trip worthwhile". (Wells, Moore, 2016)
When it came to generating ideas, I thought about all the things that have inspired my creative process, including art movements, movies, and artists as well as my own art style, which has changed over the years. "Our biggest resource in the first instance is ourselves, and thinking about our backgrounds and the characters and possible narratives that inform them is a ready place to generate possible material." (Wells, Moore, 2016)
Furthermore, this book talked about using iconic images in animation, something that people will be able to recognise and understand. "Contemporary culture is a visual one. We are surrounded by visual stimulus in images, signs and pictorial information, as well as the physical environment itself. Sometimes particular images take on an 'iconic' value and pass into popular culture as situations and scenarios that are known to mass population, and these can be used as the foundation of further interpretation and development." (Wells, Moore, 2016) In my animation, I have used movies as inspiration for my animation, in particular horror movies. I have always enjoyed horror movies, especially the older ones, as they are weird and creepy and in some ways arty. They carry this aspect of surrealism through the idea of the supernatural and make people do weird things. I am using these films as a baseline for my animation, in which I will be able to present my creative history and process.
Film Inspiration:
The main films which I shall be taking inspiration from include; 'American Psycho', 2000, 'Psycho', 1960, 'Pulp Fiction', 1994, and the movie 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', 2004. I feel like all these movies have impacted my art history and journey. Below, I shall list how:
'American Psycho', 2000: The concept at the end where we find out that everything was made up and nothing actually happened. It was all pretend. Similar to my animation, where at the end, the eye opens, to signify it has 'woken up' from a bad dream, showing that everything we have just watched never actually happened.
'Psycho', 1960: A classic horror movie, one of my favourites. It is a very simple movie but also very creepy. I will be using the famous shower scene from this movie as inspiration in my animation, with the red blood vs the white shower, and the shock aspect.
'Pulp Fiction', 1994: I like how this movie is not in chronological order, it is very confusing to watch. I might use the non chronological order idea in my animation as a way of confusing the viewer and make them question the work.
'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', 2004: This is an overall weird film, but has always inspired me to think outside the box when creating narratives and stories. I find its concept fascinating and confusing. I want to confuse the viewers in my animation and make them question what is actually going on.
"Experimental animation as a term, has become increasingly associated with non-objective, non linear works- which some claim are the purest form of animation", it is a "response and resistance to orthodox techniques" (Wells, Moore, 2016)
I am changing the perspective of the horror stories, or how we watch horror films. Instead of portraying the victim as a person, the victim becomes an eye. Thinking about interpretation of horror movies, this could change sympathy towards the victim. We may in fact fear it as it is an unnatural and weird seeing an isolated eye. We do not know if it is the villain or an innocent. Also, the viewer may not feel sympathetic towards the eye as we are not shown its owner, the person of which the eye belongs to, so we cannot connect with it. It becomes more an object than a living feature.
on the other hand eyes are fragile, vulnerable parts of our faces therefore when it is attacked by the shapes, we may feel sympathy for it. This in itself changes and challenges peoples perspectives and interpretations.
My question is do the viewers simultaneously fear the eye and also feel sympathy for it? Do we fear it because we don't recognise it as a living thing, it's more a part of a body. Do we fear it because it is staring at us throughout the animation. Or do we sympathies for it because it is vulnerable.
Avant-Garde Film makers:
"In Paris, in the 1920s, artists like Man Ray, Fernand Leger and Marcel Duchamp brought film into the fold of the avant-garde. They focused on form, making freewheeling, semi-abstract films from assembled images and snippets of text." (MoMALearning, 2021)
Oskar Fischinger was a "major figure in the development of filmic abstraction and 'visual music'" (Tate, 2021), "he strove to push aside narrative and reduce cinema to pure plan, scale, motion, rhythm and colour, in search of the absolute"(Tate, 2021). His works, 'Optical Poems', 1938, I found were memorising to watch. Shapes and colours dance around the screen alongside the music. "His work is all about dancing geometric shapes and abstract forms spinning around a flat, featureless background" (OpenCulture, 2014).
I was interested to see how his animations focus on the relationship between geometric shapes and sound. How often the shapes looked like they were dancing in time with the sound, like they had dance partners and a choreography to perform. Fischinger inspired me to think about maybe not using a traditional character, (like an animal figure) and maybe use something a bit more abstract to explore the boundaries of animation. This is partly what motivated me to use the eye as the main 'character' (if you can call it that) in my animation. I also thought about using geometric forms and shapes in my work as well, which attack the eye. This is slightly representational of the how Fischinger declined the use of a character in his animations. Therefore, the shapes are 'beating up' the eye which has a slight potential for a narrative character. They are trying to embrace and encourage new animation.
The eye being 'beaten up' is also a reference to horror movies, especially the shower scene from the film Psycho, 1960.
Hans Richter also inspired me in my animation development and ideas. His work, 'Rhythmus 21', 1921, is an abstract animation, which lasts "only 3 minutes, the film shows squares and rectangles moving across and within the flat plane of the screen in a mesmerising rhythm." (TheArtStory, 2021) Again we see lots of interaction between the shapes and play. The shapes hold no narrative as they move around, it is like movement for movements sake, rather than representing a story. Another work of his that inspired me is, 'Vormittagsspuk' (Ghosts Before Breakfast), 1928, which was a piece of work where "objects are also people and follow their own laws" (TheArtStory, 2021). This work has a DADA theme, where the objects are doing random, nonsensical things. "While the film is full of DADA, whimsy and anarchy, there is a darker undertone. If objects are people, then are people objects?" (The ArtStory, 2021) I like how Richter has almost turned the objects into people, its like anthropomorphism. This made me think about how the eye, even though it's a human eye and therefore already a 'human feature', I am thinking about making it into a feature on its own and giving it human traits. Making it seem that it has feelings of its own and can move on its own, etc.
Hans Richter, 'Rhythmus 21', 1921, 35mm film transferred to video (black and white, silent), 3 min, MoMA, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/398276
This could be another reason why the shapes are fighting the eye, apart from the obvious horror representation. It could represent how modern and abstract artists tried to fight against traditional and representational artwork. Such as the surrealists and the Minimalists, in fact most modern art movements. They tore apart traditional art by taking it back to the bare basics.
Artist Inspiration:
Rene Magritte
Rene Magritte really inspired me to focus on an eye in my animation. His piece, 'The False Mirror', 1929, in particular made me think about using the eye alone from any other part of the human face. "A huge isolated eye stares out at the viewer" (MoMA, 2021). Inside the eye, we can see through to a set of clouds in the sky. The clouds are very realistic which makes the viewer feel like they are looking through a window, rather than through an eye. It is disconcerting to realise (after looking through the eye to view the clouds) that the eye is actually equally watching you. "It places the viewer on the spot, caught between looking through and being watched by an eye that proves to be empty" (MoMA, 2021). This idea inspired me to think about ways that I could use the eye to produce a surrealist effect. In the 'raining' section of the animation, the eye fills up with water, which represents flooding, crying, emotion and so on. The use of the rain with the eye created an interesting interpretation, which could mean that the eye is crying or the eye is showering or the rain could represent an emotion. It could mean all these things together. Using a surrealist approach I was able to collaborate these different interpretations in one scene.
The eye also represents being watched. So as we watch the animation, it's almost as if the animation is watching us, producing a creepy effect. It also represents how the eye is being watched by another source, before the eye is attacked. It kind of acts as a mirror for the viewers, a surreal and abstract mirror, which may feel creepy and unsettling to watch.
Rene Magritte, 'The False Mirror', 1929, oil on canvas, 54 x 80.9 cm, MoMA, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78938
After Effects Workshops: I found the after affects workshops very helpful in setting me up with animation. I had no previous experience of animation, so this gave me a good foundation on how to use After Effects.
I learnt how to make a basic animation. It was tricky getting used to the this technology, but I managed to follow the tutorial and create this 10 second animation, which consisted of shapes moving around.
I also learnt how to create shapes on After Effects and how to move and manipulate them and the colours.
My Development:
Mood-board:
First of all, to collect all my inspiration and ideas, I decided to create a mood-board for the kind of themes I am looking to use in my animation. I am thinking about creating some kind of creepy obscure thriller piece. This looks at the things that have inspired me in my art practise, including surrealism, DADAism, and horror films. In my animation I want it to represent confusion and the feeling of the unknown, so that the viewer can produce their own interpretation. I have always been inspired by weird and obscure art that keeps the viewer guessing or even confuses them, I feel like it makes them more involved in the work as they have to try and work it out.
Movies have always inspired my creative process and thinking from a young age. I especially enjoy obscure movies which are confusing and make you have to become like a sort of detective. Movies including, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', 2004, and 'Psycho', 1960. I think the idea of not entirely knowing what is going on is quite creepy, as it makes the viewer vulnerable to shock and surprise.
Script:
Using stop motion as test shots for animation:
I used stop motion test shots for my animation, because I found that they are an easier to manipulate, without having to re-draw.
I had four basic ideas making these test shots, which included two versions of the eye.
One of the eyes was supposed to be normal (yellow) and one was supposed to be the 'scared' version (red). I found that doing these test shots enabled me to visualise the animation a bit better and made me think about different ways of making the animation.
I had considered using stop motion and I even tried to do it, but as I am new to animation I found this process very difficult and too time consuming, so decided to start drawing my animations instead which was a much faster process.
I knew I wanted to include shapes in my animation, so I experimented with paper, buttons and foam sheets to figure out how I wanted the shapes to look, whether I wanted them to be colourful or big/small. This experimentation gave me the idea to use thunder in my animation as a warning sign before something bad happened, which alerts both the viewers and the eye itself.
I was thinking about doing the thunderbolts in stop animation, but again it was too time consuming, especially as the thunder bolts do not occur that much in my animation, it didn't seem worth it.
I created a mind map to develop the ideas for my animation. I thought about other aspects of inspiration such as Constructivism, Minimalism, Geometric Abstraction, performance art and so on. I wanted to include these movements in my animation in subtle ways as the animation itself is fairly subtle and obscure. I found doing this gave me more structure in what I was going to base the animation around.
Story Structure:
There are three parts to my animation. The first part is the eye waking up and going to sleep, then being rained on. The second part, which is the 'main event', is where the eye gets attacked by the shapes and goes into a state of delusion and confusion. The final part is where the eye wakes up and we realise that it was all a dream, it never actually happened.
Concept:
A representation of my creative development, through the use of a horror theme/story. I am lightly basing my animation of one of my favourite horror movies, 'Psycho', 1960, the famous shower scene. I have always been inspired by how in this one scene they make it quite scary, but we don't actually see anything happen, apart from the attacker, the screaming girl and the blood. I have always found it fascinating how despite the lack of visuals, this has always managed to scare me. This idea inspired me to create a creepy animation, which is less visually descriptive, but still implies something bad is happening, in a more minimalist way. Again the idea of the unknown and the obscure is unsettling. I decided to keep the animation fairly plain, with a white background so that the red contrasts strongly with the white. In 'Psycho', the use of white and the red in the shower scene is a powerful contrast, and the white background enables the red to stand out and appear more gruesome.
As the majority of the animation is set up in a dream, there is lot of illusion and randomness, which produces a dream like effect. That fact that the viewers don't know its a dream until the end only adds to the obscurity of the animation.
The message:
Art can be unexpected and surprising. It has many various meanings, it is what you make of it. It's often up to interpretation.
Questions what is and isn't real.
Tone:
My animation has a mixture of a quirky and creepy tone.
Reflection:
Potential problems: I feel like doing this might be a bit ambitious, but I am willing to have a go and see what I create.
First storyboard:
To get an idea around timing and framing, I created my first storyboard. This gave me an understanding of how much work I needed to create and how I was going to achieve the animation in the given time. I shall develop my storyboard a couple more times during the development of my idea.
At the moment, I am looking at using three types of strategies to create my animation, including digital drawings, stop motion animation and filming. However, I am not sure whether this will be achievable considering the time frame I have in which to work in and my lack of experience in animation.
I started off by creating some drawings of eyes and thinking about how I want the eyes to look visually. I was thinking about using a mixture of abstract drawings and realistic drawings to create the eye. This made me consider using two different eyes. The abstract drawing of the eye would represent how I like to draw now, with less attention on detail and more attention on quick line and immediate drawing. The more detailed, realistic eye would reflect how I used to draw, as well as traditional art ideas about aesthetic art and representational art.
I drew some very quick observational drawings of eyes using pen and crayon, giving myself 10 seconds to draw each one. I then replicated this approach using procreate on my Ipad. I was happy with how these drawings turned out. I found that observational drawing within a short time limit was an effective way to focus on the main details of the eye. It did not give me enough time to think about the aesthetics, so I was able to produce a raw and basic drawing. I mainly focused on the eye shape, the eyeball and the eyelashes.
I then looked at the movement of the eye, through observing my own eyes as they moved and opened and closed. I began drawing the stages of an eye blinking, and came up with around 4 drawings for this movement.
After looking at the basic movement, I started to progress these drawings, developing the style. I decided to make the first version of the eye very rough and scribbly and unrefined. I also think it reflects my fine art background, using pencils and other classic art mediums on procreate.
Drawing a less refined eye makes produces a certain tiredness, which reflects that this particular eye is in and out of sleep, as we find out at the end of the animation. Whereas in the dream, the eye is polished and less tired looking. I drew the images below after observing my eye and I copied my eye colour, to make this a more personal animation. I feel like the blue also works well as a contrast, when the eye turns red. The colour blue is also representational of sadness, crying, water, etc. It represents something emotional.
Here is a GIF of the eye moving to show how it would work in my animation. I decided though after doing this to erase the colour on the eyelid. I wanted the contrast between the blue and and white and also to focus the attention on the blue eyeball. I felt that the pink eyelid took some of the attention away from this. It also made it seem more realistic, which is something I was edging away from in this version of the eye.
Another part of my animation is the water droplet scene. I wasn't sure how to produce this, so I came up with several versions. The first version was to show droplets falling in the eyeball, which represents surrealism. However, I decided that as the eye was going to be more realistic during this part of the animation, it wouldn't work as could make everything look a bit messy. So I decided to make the water droplets form on the outside of the eyeball. I feel like this was much more effective, as it produced in the question: where are these water-droplets coming from? In this case, it could be the tears from the eye, rainfall or shower droplets, in which it is all three. The shower droplets represent the shower scene in 'Psycho', the rainfall and the tears foreshadows something bad is about to happen.
Here is my representational, realistic drawing of my eye ball, which I drew from observation. I tried to make it as realistic as possible. I was very happy with the outcome of the drawing and felt that it reflected my previous drawing style when I was younger, therefore representing my creative journey.
I applied raindrops to the outside of this eye to see how it would look. I was much happier with the rainfall on the outside of the eye instead of inside. This still represented surrealism which has been a major influence on my art style throughout my life.
I created a red version of the image above. This represents the plot twist in the story. The red represents blood and danger and something sinister. It's like a warning sign. I was happy with the contrast between the blue and the red, it reminded me of a traffic light kind of system. I decided not to keep the black background as I wanted the contrast between the white and the red.
I then made a Gif using this idea. I used two main colours, which interchanged between each other. This I felt helped the red to pop out more violently. The change from blue to red is quite dramatic.
I then thought about creating a composition of a collection of eyes together. It reminded me of a dream or a drunken kind of state, where your'e seeing double. It creates this surreal effect which I was happy about. I thought about arranging lots of eyes together during this segment of the animation, with the raindrops. However, I experimented with form and arrangement and decided to stick to one eye, as otherwise it makes it feel like more than one eye is being attacked. But, as a way of creating delusion or confusion, after the attack I think this could be a good method of representing that. It could produce a delirious state. Furthermore, I like the combination of using more than one eye as it creates the feeling of being watched. It reminds the viewer that the eye is being watched and equally, the viewer is being watched by the animation itself. There is the question of who is being watched.
Another aspect of this animation is using shapes, which will interact with the eye, to represent my interest in minimalism and constructivism. The shapes will first start falling from the eye to represent crying and fear, then the shapes will start to gather around the eye, and attack it. This attack represents two things, first of all it relates to horror movies and the shower scene in 'Psycho'. Next it represents how the modernist and abstract artists and art movements revolted against the traditional fine art and it's hierarchies. It also represents how they had a total disregard for traditional art and made art to make fun of it, for example like they did in DADA.
I also experimented more with colour, and looked at using purple as well as red, to create a dramatic appearance. Purple represents bruises and red represents the blood. Two very strong and representational colours.
As the shapes attack the eye, the eye changes different colours, which first of all represents the fact it is getting wounded. Secondly it represents how abstract art has changed how we see and value art today, as something much more open minded and experimental. The eye goes through a journey of appearing very representational, to something which has a more modernistic appearance.
I experimented by creating collages. But I decided not to use them, I couldn't think how they would fit into my animation. But I did like their aesthetic look. It was an experiment to see how far I could go with obscuring the eye. However, I felt like it became irrelevant.
Creating my first animations:
I thought about how I could combine a number of eyes together. I used different colours and found that this was effective in differentiating them. I also thought that using unnatural, bright colours added to the illusionistic effect. I made them jump around the space, which gives the eyes this physical ability, therefore making it quite surreal and bizarre.
This is a GIF I produced as a screen test, for the 'dancing eyes'. I really liked this bit of animation. I liked how its makes the viewer have to track the eyes with their own eyes, it's like a bit of a game, 'spot me if you can' kind of teasing. Its like the eyes are playing around, having fun winding up the viewer. Now it has been attacked by the abstract art, it is much more loose and fun and playful. This is a representation of how my own artwork has changed as a result of becoming more abstract.
It also represents the eyes delirious state after having been attacked by these shapes. The panic, and idea of seeing things which are not there. The body going into panic mode. It is confusing as it makes us question is this the same eye, or are there more than one?
At the end of this GIF, the eye explodes, becoming even more abstract and minimal in its form and appearance. I was thinking about how this represents its fragility and vulnerability.
Here is a brief portrayal of how the eye will progress from the sketched version to the realistic version. There is a big contrast between both drawings. In the realistic drawing, I decided not to draw the other elements of the eye and just focus on the eye ball itself. This creates a contrast between the eye which is sleeping and the eye which is part of the dream. The 'dream' eye is more realistic, but I limited extraneous features to make the eye appear more vulnerable, like it is on its own, there is nothing to defend it. Also as this eye is part of the dream I wanted to make it slightly more obscure by getting rid of extra features.
Finally, by only using the eyeball itself in the dream, it forces the viewer to look directly into the eye. It's more confrontational this way.
I looked at making animations with shapes. I decided in the end to fill the shapes in black. This represents the minimalist geometric influence I have in my work. It also disguises the shapes a bit better, getting rid of any personality. It's like in a horror movie, when the bad guy is disguised in black so we are withheld any information on who did it.The shapes are in disguise as well.
Here is my updated storyboard, now I have drawings which I am going to be using in my animation. I have decided however, to not film any footage and instead draw the entire animation. I feel like the film would interrupt the flow of the animation and perhaps make it too obscure. So I shall draw a final storyboard which also contains timings of the frames, which will guide me when making my animation.
Sound Storyboard:
I created the sound for the animation using objects in my kitchen. The storyboard shows how I planned out the sound in time order. I wanted the sound to kind of match the events happening in my animation, but it was fairly loose as the animation is about a dream, so the sound does not need to match to perfection. The slight randomness of the sound I feel makes the animation a bit more weird and quirky, adding to the confusion and idea that it was all a dream in the end.
Final Storyboard:
Overall, I am very happy with the concept of my animation. I feel like it reflects my creative journey through the way that I think, due to being dyslexic is rather random and not always greatly organised. I feel like it represented my thought process, in the way that things are purposely disjointed and confusing. It contains the things that inspired me in my creative journey, including art movements, and film inspirations. I think my animation also represents my style throughout the years, I used to be interest in very realistic art, whereas now I am more invested in abstract art and design, that challenges the viewer, which I believe my animation does.
Considering I have never made an animation before or had any experience in the world of animation, I did fairly well in the production of animating although learning how to draw the individual drawings was harder than i had anticipated in order to convey movement. I did really struggle making this animation due to my lack of technical skills, which meant that I had to recreate the animation several times before it would work. This meant I wasn't able to spend much time editing or making sure my animation could run smoothly. So for the future I shall spend time developing my animation skills, so that I can confidently use AfterEffects.
If I could change anything about my animation, I would try to make the movement a bit more realistic, but I think in this case, the movement of the eye works well in its context of being in a dream, where movement can be what it likes and does not reflect reality. The animation is not very smooth which I am a bit disappointed about. However, I am happy with the drawings and my overall concept for the animation.
Bibliography:
MoMA (2021) Rene Magritte, MoMA. Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78938.
MoMA (2021) Hans Richter, MoMA. Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/398276.
TheArtStory (2021) Hans Richter Artworks, The Art Story. Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/richter-hans/artworks/.
OpenCulture (2014) Optical Poems by Oskar Fischinger, the Avant-Garde Animator Hated by Hitler, Dissed by Disney, OpenCulture. Available at: https://www.openculture.com/2014/09/optical-poems-by-oskar-fischinger.html.
Tate (2021) Oskar Fischinger, Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/display/oskar-fischinger.
MoMA (2021) Film, Moma Learning. Available at: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/film/experimentation-in-film-the-avant-garde/.
Wells, P. and Moore, S. (2016) Fundamentals of Animation.
Smith, V. (2018) Experimental and Expanded Animation: New Perspectives and Practises
Wells, P., Quinn, J. and Mills, L. (2009) Drawing for Animation.
Andrew, S. (2013) Animation.
Chong, A. (2008) Digital Animation.
Gilmore, M. and Nersessian, E. (1999) ‘Freud’s Model of the Mind in Sleep and Dreaming’, Neuropsychoanalysis, 1(2).