With my project, I want to explore and expand the initial stages of my creative process. I’d like to take more time to explore the ideas I have and consciously make decisions if I want to go further with them or discard them, rather than taking the first thing in my mind that I like. It is also interesting to me to explore how working around a visual or a single scene in my mind instead of having to come up with everything before and then working on the details could work. I will also spend more time experimenting with the technique, making tests and developing what works for the film through making, since I feel that research is what my animations were lacking in the past. I want this work to be a screen-based animation with a storyline, so I am currently working on a script, which I have never done before. The story is focused on themes of friendship, lifelong bond, warmth and appreciation of beauty. To best reflect the softness and light of the themes, I’m thinking of going with using mainly watercolour for the animation. I also want to include lino printing and oil pastels as well as mix everything up with digital editing techniques such as datamoshing. This way I could work with traditional media, which is what I am confident in, and improve my digital skills. I want to give myself a lot of time to test combining these two things to make sure the film is of good quality, looks developed and professional. As for collaboration, I am planning to find someone to work on sound with. Also, me and my team from Principles of Production project have formed a support group for each other, where we decided to share ideas, inspiration and critique each other. I think this will greatly benefit my work, as I am inspired by my former teammates’ work and the things they’ve shown me so far were great and visually stimulating.
My initial schedule is:
Finish script by 15th of March
Storyboard and technique tests 14th March to 21st March
Animation tests 21st to 28th March
Storyboard revisions and animatic 28th March to 4th April
Go into production by 16th April, fix mistakes and experiment until then.