The personal reflections on Children Society project.
I should admit, I failed. I failed to finish the Children Society (CS) project on time of the deadline. Not even half of the film is completed.
Well, I thought a lot lately about why this has happened and what I’ve learned during this project.
When we went for summer holidays, the project was in the pre-animation stage. Storyboards and animatic were finished, and I could start to animate it. What I actually did. I helped Kat with her graduation film at that time and began to work on CS film a bit. So, why I didn’t manage to finish the film on time?
First and foremost, I didn’t know my capabilities. In other words, the lack of experience to plan this type of work. I knew that I could do that quality of animation, but didn’t realise how much time it would take, though. Although I saw the first sights of how complicated my planned animations are, I didn’t pay attention. And even decided to take a break of animating at the end of August and September.
I learned Maya, sketched a lot, painted, studied storyboarding, watched shorts and attended online webinars, conferences and animation festivals. Even got a chance to visit some exhibitions, like Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk (wanted to see how Japanese depict and simplify flowers shapes in their art) in Victoria and Albert Museum, Among the Trees in Hayward Gallery and Andy Warhol in Tate Modern. Additionally, I thought about to make changes in the Children Society film style by adding the real flowers instead of drawn ones. So, I took a lot of photos at that time.
Now I see if I would proceed work on the CS project during these months, I could finish it indeed, even with this complicated animation quality. Or might be I would reach one of the tutors to get a piece of advice to find out how I can simplify my animation in that early stage.
node view with masking node
Thus, the lack of proper planning and experience was a critical problem during film production. Accordingly, I’m going to make everything to avoid these mistakes in my graduation film.
Also, another obstacle was that I chose to do animation in Toon Boom Harmony instead of TV Paint. At that time, this software was only slightly explored by me, I just watched a couple of tutorials. However, I knew that Toon Boom is one of the major soft in the animation industry. Therefore I decided to do the film in this programme simultaneously learning it. So, animating took more time than usual for me. Simply because I spend a lot of time watching online tutorials and exploring all different ways to work with Toon Boom and which one works best in my case at the same time.
Although it might look like a disruption in work, especially at the beginning, yet, I learned a tone! Really struggled with brushes. Since they are vectorised, it was hard to adapt to drawing after the TV Paint. However, I managed to overcome it. I’m now more familiar with Harmony’s interface, can easily navigate through it. I can use Node View and add Nodes. I learned how to use an integrated sound manager to move, cut and dissolve or increase track’s audio. Also, I clearly see the advantages of working with Toon Boom. It is like a combination of TV Paint for 2D animation, plus Adobe Animate for cut-outs and Adobe After Effects for VFX. And this is great! I could make fadings-in and out, transparencies and apply blur effect easy. Add masks and camera movements and many more without switching to AE. Everything can be done in one software.
Clearly, this experiment was worth it. And the best way to learn any software is to make an actual project in it. Furthermore, I’m going to proceed to learn it and currently doing an additional short course.
3D reference shot
On the whole, this project was a constant studying experience. I shoot many references, even did a 3D ref in Maya, learned a lot, and tried different ways to animate. Even tutors saw significant progress in my work. Also, not only speaking about the technical side. Besides, I know more about my abilities and weak sides and about my work approach now. Therefore I can avoid these mistakes in my future work.
After all, I want to add that I will work on it bit by bit and hope to finish it this year.
The produced animation is a combination of two traditional technics: stop-motion and digitally drawn 2D frame by frame.
In the beginning, I would like to divide the work experience on the film into two parts: the first one is pre-production, that happened during the spring, right before the summer holidays. The second part, post-production got around the month from October to November.
By and large, over the first part of the production, we had a lot of meetings and discussions about and around the story. It was a lot of teamwork, where each of us commits to the inquiries about the narrative itself and about the technical part of our future film. We tried to predict what kind of challenges we will meet and how to avoid them by meticulously schedule each step.
Besides all that, I worked on visual content for the project. For this reason, I had plenty of conversations with our director Hsin about what worlds look like, what the difference between birds, how we are going to show it understandably so that it will not leave any doubts. I draw images which then use to produce storyboards as well as a presentation for the client.
Because of the strictly limited time of the final trailer, that should be no more than 1 min; the story changes drastically throughout the pre-production stage. The crucial point was to make it shorter, while do not lose the initial idea. Therefore, I draw and redraw a lot of pictures, either making minor changes or draw whole sequences from scratch. After every meeting with either client or course leads or invited industry professional, there was a lot of work and adjustments to make.
I found that throughout the pre-production step, it is quite crucial to make clear visuals and present the story in the right way and be confident about technical nuances to avoid future misunderstanding with the clients.
Even though I had a quite distinguish role in the first part of creating the film, I would say that overall, it felt more like a team effort.
However, in contrast to the first stage of production, the next step was an absolutely different experience.
For this part, our director decided not to distribute roles between us (a stop-motion animator, an editor, 2D animator, colourist, etc.), but sections of the film instead. So, each team member got his own part to work on from the very beginning until the sequence is absolutely finished. I got the first 10 seconds of animation.
We got much artistic freedom, however, were provided with comprehensive instructions about what kind of actions Hsin would love to see.
Firstly, when we got access to the studio, I helped Hsin to set up the shooting space, by installing a camera, lights and computer for animating our stop-motion backgrounds. We shoot fist sequence in two days. For the first day, it was a lot of experimenting, cutting paper, pros and cons about which method will be more comfortable and faster.
Following, I worked in Photoshop, editing all images for my sequence, by removing unnecessary shadows and adjusting colours and lights.
The next step was animation. Firstly, the background itself. I used our animatic with sounds to roughly time whole clip. I manipulated with images in Photoshop to add some additional frames to make more smooth flight of the platform without the necessity to go to the studio to shoot additional images.
When I was happy with the result, I started working with the main character, the Red Bird.
While on the Red Bird animation, I got approval from the first pass, conversely, it took me a couple of tries to get the right movements for White Birds. I even made a test animation for how they are going to appear on the platform.
And finally, COLOURING stage: we got a colouring palette and list of tools that we should use from the director, so it was a straightforward work.
In the end, I want to add that in spite of it was a challenging project in point of time, however also a great experience. Nevertheless, for sure, a real pleasure to work with Hsin and Limbo.
Autumn Fires
by Robert Louis Stevenson
In the other gardens
And all up the Vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!
As for a person who always struggled to express and describe her own thoughts and feelings with words, poetry was a lifesaver starting way back from middle school years. So, poetry and often music helped me to reveal clear meaning and convey ideas and mood.
Hence, then autumn just started to touch leaves with yellow and red colours, I felt a deep need to find words that will represent my inner thoughts about changes that happening around with nature. Additionally, I collected some leaves during long walks in surrounded parks.
Moreover, then I discovered this beautiful poem from R. L. Stevenson, it gave me an idea to make a stop-motion animation using natural supplies that could be found outside.
So, this is a final result
I would add that it wasn’t the most straightforward task. Since we had no access to the university building and use the studio’s resources for stop-motion, I needed to figure out how to make it at home with tools available. Luckily I had a small tripod with flexible legs that I can adjust to basically to everything.
camera setup
You can see my tricky camera setup. I used a Stop Motion Studio app for the phone. I decided to get a paid version since it gives more flexibility to working on a project.
But the most challenging part of making this animation was the lighting. In the beginning, I tried to set up a station in the room using two desk lamps. However, the artificial light changes colours of leaves and other supplies drastically. Therefore I decided to use natural light and set the station on the windowsill.
Even though it helped a lot, however, pictures still had to be edited to get rid of unnecessary shadows. So, I transfer them to Photoshop to edit.
The next step, I uploaded all materials to After Effects, composed and add some finishing touches, so the colour will be even for the whole video.
Evidently, it turns out not the easiest and quickest “project for a day”, as I planed. Despite this, I enjoyed working on it. I successfully overcame all small challenges and recalled how to use Photoshop and After Effects. And I really like the final result of the work.
To my amazement, I came across animated short film The Man Who Planted Trees (1987) this week, and I was immediately swept away by almost poetical beauty of this work.
The film directed by Canadian animator Frederic Back, well known for his scrupulous, airy cinematic works, won Academy Award in 1988 for the Best Animated Short Film and competed for other festivals.
The Man Who Planted Trees is based on the short novel by French author Jean Giono (wiki link) with the same name, that first published in 1953. It tells the story of a young man, the narrator, who hiking through a desolate and windy provincial valley and old villages in the Alps and met a solitary shepherd named Elzeard Bouffier. The shepherd lives a quiet life and… planting trees every day. The narrative takes us over four decades, through two world wars, following the life paths of both the narrator and the Bouffier.
The most that fascinated me, of course, is a beauty of simple, tranquil pencil drawings. Minimalistic faded hues of sepia-toned colour at the beginning of the film, showing broken villages and catching the bleakness of the surrounded environment with rocks and poor weeds lashed by a bitter wind, and people without hope.
And the latter half of the narrative, we see utterly different aesthetic; when brown and grey give way to rich, plentiful colours and frames finally blossomed, bringing lavishness and spectacle to all they touche. Each next scene gradually turns brighter, the animation becomes more sophisticated, highlighting the return of hope, peace and rebirth of the area. And at this point, Black’s visuals strongly reminded me of classic pointillism and impressionists such as Monet and Sisley.
It is worth to mention that watching how shapes and visuals morphing through the animation from one picture to another making almost dream-like sequences, I recall so much of two much-beloved animators Yuri Norstein and Aleksandr Petrov. Same as these masters, Back, by using traditional tools, coloured pencils and crayons, conveys chances, visualise movements and life in his works. Mastering animation over the years, he transforms the great story into the film that entrancing to watch over and over again.
Recently everyone in our class got a chance to propose an idea for the short stings for this year LIAF (London International Film Festival). This is a part of the Unit 2 Team Project. That means after presentations the invited jury will select several works, and we will be divided into teams to make the film.
Stings are the short animated films which are screened several times before every competition programs of the festival and online in social media and LIAF webpage. They like short representations, intros, for the festival programs. They are approximately in 30-45 seconds length in a broad range of styles, animation techniques and genres.
Overall, there are 8 screening programs:
The Abstract Showcase
From Absurd to Zany
Playing with Emotion
Being Human
Into the Dark
Animated Documentaries
Looking for Answers
Long Shots
Also, it was essential to watch all presented works during the pitching, since we should select several projects which we would like to work on later.
So, I proceed with the idea for the Into The Dark.Â
title screen
Synopsis
There are dark hours on Earth when different scenarios and stories happen, and various characters live their lives.
mood board
The narrative takes place during the late-night hour in a back alley of the city or town. It is a narrow part of the street that is hidden away from the prying eyes, with trash bags in the corners and dark green containers, a ‘missing’ poster on the side of the container, a labyrinth of tubes deck the walls of the buildings and only one blinking light ray in the middle of all it. The unrecognised sounds surround this place, scratchy noises, the electric flickering of the lamp.
style frame
There something that attracts a rat to this place. It smells it and trying to find the source. Finally, it sees the thing in the middle of the light spot. It is the murder of crows. There, inside that pale of bodies and feathers is something that rat smells. And it jumps, another jump, and run straight to the centre of the birds.
style frame
But these birds always aware always on the look-out. One of the birds rises above and make a deafening sound to warn everyone. And right before the rat reaches them, they disappeared.
style frame
The scene opens up with an upper view in the middle of the light we see the peace of a hand in the paddle of blood. This is a source that attracts all these night creatures to this tiny dark alley in the middle of the night. The rat grabs this hand and dragged it into the safety of shadows.
The end.
It supposed to be made by using TV Paint and/or After Effects. Since I thought that most of my classmates familiar with this two software perfectly. I simplified the style of animals and exterior, and made everything with sharp angles without curves to provide unpleasant feeling to scenes. Also, acoustic sounds and music should add the mood and scary atmosphere to the story.
characters exploration
Unfortunately, the story did not get through the draw. It seems to me that the narrative is too simple and basic without any strong points for the festival LIAF level. Additionally, I see that main style frame with the rat and the poster did not play because of the mistake in the composition and lighting of the scene.
This is an excerpt from my recent essay about animated documentary medium and whether is it a powerful tool or not to raise awareness about civil issues around the world.
The mix of documentary films and an animation technique is like a peculiar union. This form of filmmaking can be attractive for the audience in its consequential way.
In my opinion, documentary animation can be a powerful tool to make substantial changes in public minds and raise awareness about civil disturbances. It can generate empathy by irradiating new perspectives and activating powerful emotions in audiences.
Moreover, this filmmaking sector is growing amazingly quickly, and the public is now witnessing a hum around it. More significant numbers of documentary animations produced in the last decades and more film festivals have added a distinguish documentary section in their comprehensive programmes.
However, there exists a definition gap; then some part
of the public identifies what animation is and what is a
documentary as a separate media. Moreover, it could be a hindrance for them to
understand the message, and they would not choose that kind of film for their
viewing.
That means that the numbers of people who will see a film will be significantly lower. Furthermore, the social effect will be postponed and does not immediately makes changes.
The film The Girl in the Hallway (2019) by Valerie Barnhart will be analysed to find the answer about the efficacy of animated documentary as a potential medium to present real-world stories and as a communication tool with the public.
The Girl in the Hallwaypremiered on Vimeo in 1999 as a Staff Pick Award, and later at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and following a festival run at ShortFest, Fantasia and Annecy.
The film is a result of a collaboration between the artist Valerie Barnhart and the writer, storyteller Jamie DeWolf.
Valerie Barnhart is an independent visual artist, director and animator based out of Canada. She studied at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design where she earned her BFA and Visual Arts Major.
Jamie DeWolf has a background as a performing artist and educator. He also worked as a director on commercials, music videos and documentaries. He is known for his vibrant exploration of a wide range of genres, and his social activities bring into public focus problems of underprivileged communities. DeWolf’s short stories fulfilled with arousing boundary-pushing subject matter.
Jamie DeWolf calls this story The tale of Little Red Riding-Not all girls make it out of the forest. The core of the narrative is his personal experience that he shared during stage performance for the radio podcast SnapJudgment.org. It based on an actual event that took place in California, in December 1999 when seven years old Xiana La-Shay Fairchild disappeared and did not come back home from school.
Valerie Barnhart discovered DeWolf’s performance on YouTube channel and was moved by it. So, she contacted with writer and got his permission to start working on a film.
For Valerie Barnhart, it is a first film and the first time of using the animation as a medium. She literally taught herself how to animate during three years of production. She spends much time in examining materials for the film by analysing crimes scenes, reading articles about murdered and missing people cases, additionally working on creating reference videos of acting, visual researching, studying other artists and filmmakers.
Figure 2
The Girl in the Hallway made by using 2D stop motion technique. Artist animated
it straight ahead chronologically in one take by painting every single frame
with charcoals, pastels, and graphite on paper and accompanied them with
collages of newspapers and some plasticine. Barnhart played with the style and
technique by experimenting throughout the production. (Figure 2)(Figure 3)
Figure 3
Interesting to point, that if in the animated documentary is used original voiceover of a person who is the main character behind the story, it gives an extra authenticity to it. Hence, it can carry the genuine emotions of a speaker. It works as the most beneficial sound effect that could not be recreated by acting.
Valerie Barnhart put to use the advantage of it and
applied the original recording of Jamie DeWolf’s first performance with this
story on the stage in San Francisco. As a result, the authentic record provides
additional sensitive capacities to the narrative and made it extra relatable
and easily understandable on an emotional level. The origin of soundtrack
guarantees that the audience can truly feel the tautness of the voice of Jamie
DeWolf and show out his inner sensitivities of this painful event. The sound
perfectly draws out the atmosphere of the story, the feelings of the main
character and every word he delivers.
Moreover, the animation technique is also quite exceptional in how it conveys the mood of the story- it uses fictions as an interpretation tool. Thus, the animation improves beyond presentations and offers participants of the film privacy that they need to express themselves more freely.
This form gives the experience to move away from reality by using artificial devices in the filmmaking process. Animation helps to create a sense of distance and anonymity, the audience no longer looking on a specific individual. Nevertheless, it still allows identifying that person. Additionally, this anonymity allows spectators to feel more intensely.
Besides it, if the whole visual sequence of the documentary film supplemented with animated segments, it gives more vitality to documentary, and it allows viewers to delve deep into the emotional part of the narrative. Also, it filters out appalling details that people find hard to digest and lets to explore their emotions and engage with the story.
As a result, the audience will respond differently to the animated documentary than they will do it to a traditional, live-action form.
Obviously, Valerie Barnhart’s animation style utterly matches the grim condition of the events. With frightful visuals, rendered by using traditional tools, mostly charcoal and graphite, it carries the horrific burden of DeWolf’s regret. However, it still helps the audience to pass through the frightening narrative and conveys the central message of the story.
It is important to note that in the film The Girl in the Hallway, there are two heart-breaking stories.
First is the disappearance and murder of Xiana Fairchild. With the major message that moves the audience- silence and inaction are the cause of a passive form of violence. Silence is complicity. DeWolf and Barnhart speak out laud that we are discriminating against those around us. What even if society recognises this situation, by remaining in silence is the same as continuing it.
In addition, underneath the central promise lies Valerie’s discovery about the existence of cultural genocide of indigenous women and girls.
Since in our modern and humanitarian society,
the settler colonialism still exists. Moreover, external laws,
regulations and civil forces cannot protect these settlements and monitor crime
situation on the inside them. Consequently, these women and two-spirited became
easy targets and victims for kidnapping, abuse and murder.
This is where Barnhart came across DeWolf’s phrase about Red Riding Hood and decided to use this definition straightforward and drew a line between fairytale story character and Xiana Fairchild by dressing her in a red dress (Figure 4). The choice of colour represents women and girls from indigenous communities as easy and defenceless targets for hunting wolves.
Figure 4
Besides, it is challenging for filmmakers to staying an objective while working on a project. Then thorough the process, the characters involved in the story and become more familiar; hence, as a natural reaction of the artist to start to draw conclusions and consequently change an opinion to more subjective.
This is what Valerie Barnhart said about her experience in the interview for Medium.com, in January 2019: “It was hard finding a balance where I can fully give justice to Xiana, stay true to Jamie, reflect on genocide, and reflect on my own personal experiences that connect me to both of my subjects. It required a lot of energy, thought, and sensitivity as I in no way, want to exploit a tragedy or emotionally manipulate my audience”.
It is clearly seen that the film The Girl in the
Hallway is a strong example of documentary animation which displays as an
effective and affective medium for portraying social issues.
Taking everything into consideration, it is satisfying to say that documentary animation likely will continue to grow and mature well as social impact tool in the future. As this approach grows, as well as crafts of animation and documentary filmmaking themselves, there are some critical notes to keep in mind when thinking about this practice.
It should be said, that if viewers define documentary
and animation genres in a strict context base, as separate kinds, it is hard
for them to swallow it, seemingly and it is less truthful for them. Thus, for
this part of the audience, it could be hard to accept these messages that
animated documentary films try to convey. For a large part of the audience,
this particular format of the film could be a barrier to accept this genre
since they believe that animation means Disney’s Mickey Mouse. So, for them, it
is challenging to accept serious themes presented by animation techniques.
Even though there is no formula to predict or calculate when the understanding and recognition of this part of society is going to change in their minds, clearly, it is possible by applying additional steps and strategy to speed up that process.
For instance, the solution could be solidarity work between animation documentary directors and artists and a skillfully carried out social media tactics. It already started happening around but a bit erratically and uncertainly. These films need more attention to them, more visibility in the media. And social media campaigns can attract more visibility and draw extra attention to the public.
In the filmmaking industry, the story, cultural aspects and human factors move in balanced ways. This is where directors, hauled up with distinctive media strategies, can use films to boost public consciousness to think, act and renew the world.
Reading and references:
Annabelle Honess Roe
Absence, Excess and Epistemological Expansion: Towards a framework for the study of animated documentary, 2011
‘Bloomers’ is a short animated film that shows us the history of a Manchester-based family-run lingerie factory.
Initially made for the innovative Pan Europian feature film project ‘Happiness Machine’ that is a collaboration of ten women animators, ten different composers and Klangforum Wien. The project central theme touch on our current economic system and social aspects.
This lovely, lyrical, and a bit poetic documentary is directed by Samantha Moore. Because the work primarily made not only for screening in cinemas but also for public concerts, sounds and music are a quite crucial role of the film. The dialogues of workers, noises of factory’s machinery are mixed with music by composer Malin BÃ¥ng.
But the style of animation got my full attention during the screening. As I understand the film itself is made from observational drawings, sketches of the manufacture’s interiors, exteriors and people’s portraits. However, the story shows through the fabric texture that makes the sequence very flexible and moveable. And I became curious about it- is it a result of a digital composing or maybe drawings were made straight on fabrics?
After my research, I’ve found this making-off video, where Samantha unfold the creating process of the movie.
So the magic is pure- actual finished footage was printed on the fabric, and then the fabric was reshoot.
As a result, the whole film has that interesting tactile textured feeling.
During my research around styles for my graduation film, I’ve discovered works of Jeff Scher. He is an American painter and experimental film-maker from the US. In his work, he uses traditional tools like watercolours, markers, crayons paired with collages. So it’s basically drawings sequences animated with stop-motion technique. For instance, his animation “White Out” contained 2500 drawings.
Additionally, I’ve found a short interview for BBC and New York Times blog where Scher explains his work approach, processes and influences from emotions and experiences from life around him.
Most of his movies appeal to me because they are emotionally close, colourful and depicted memories, precisely what I’m looking for my film.
Furthermore, his films remind me about animation that I saw during the Cardiff Animation Festival in 2018. It’s called “That Yorkshire Sound” (2017) by Marcus Armitage. He is from the UK and graduated from the Royal College of Arts in 2014.
I think their works quite similar in style vice. And also, observation of everyday life’s events determine their animations.
They went through their experiences working on professional software like Toon Boom and TV Paint, Photoshop and Animate CC (flash), additionally mentioned the newest feature in Procreate 5, a well-known app for iPad. They talked about all the advantages and disadvantages of all these digital tools.
Also, they mentioned all new 2D animation features and series that came out this year. And what if it is a fresh start for traditional animation to reborn and be competitive in this digital 3D era.
During these holidays I’ve finally dug deep into Toon Boom Harmony.
Firstly, I want to mention that this is not my first approach to this software. I tried it back in 2013-2016, I suppose. And I must confess I didn’t get it at that time, video tutorials were quite complicated and always ended up with ‘use Help and Support to know more’, that was a bit disappointing. So, then trial version expired I didn’t purchase a fool version of the program, and they did not have a subscription back then.
Secondly, since I want to work in animation professionally now, I did research a few months ago about what kind of software is used in studios for in 2D production. And I found that TV Paint, Toon Boom and Animate CC (flash) sort of lifers in the industry.
Since we cover TV Paint and Animate CC in college, I’ve decided to study Toon Boom on my own. I discovered that its possible to subscribe to soft. And I chose a Harmony Advanced version that is a mid version of the program.
Well, I want to say that I like it so far. I think its a mix of Animate CC, then you can make motions between K-frames and Cut-out animation and TV Paint for like they called it Paperless 2D.
