Experimental Project - Ideas, Planning, and Testing

Another project I have to complete is the 'Experimental Animation' project, where I need to create an animation that doesn't have a narrative, involves experimental methods of creating animation, and it has to be between 60-90 seconds long. The theme for the animation is that it's a self portrait, so it should say something about me.

I wanted use as many materials as possible, including paint, sand, felt, thread, 2D digital drawing. I didn't want to make the animation too personal, so I wrote a list of things I like as a start. I then came up with this quick storyboard in my ideas book.

The animation starts with a cat (love of cats) yawning, where we then enter it's mouth and some clouds come down and a leaf flies over the screen (love of Autumn). A saxophone then falls into shot (played the Alto Saxophone for 7 years), and some green thread comes out of the saxophone and turns into hair (I have green hair). The thread then spirals off the head and turns into a blue cacti (I have a collection of cacti), which turns into a rocket and flies into space. Then a lightstick slides across the screen (I like to listen to kpop, and the light sticks are very collectible in kpop) and there is a rainbow explosion. I based the whole thing off the rainbow, so each section is a different colour and as the animation goes on it goes through the rainbow.

A lot of the backgrounds and other elements will be made using thread. I will add effects and extra animations using 2D.

To see how long it would take me to make a transition with thread, I tested it quickly by taking photos on my phone. 

I found it was very quick as I wanted the transitions to be quite fast. I colour corrected it in Final Cut Pro, but I put the photos together in Photoshop. I would've used Premiere, however I did this test at a time when the studios were closed and I'm still quite new to Final Cut Pro.

I was really worried about if the animation would be way too long, so I quickly animated the whole thing in TVPaint. In the end I found I had the opposite problem, it only lasted 8 seconds. I now need to plan if I'm going to extend each section, make the animation slower, or change it to make it run for longer.

I like making videos as a hobby, and my own YouTube channel, so I have lots of ideas for videos. I may use some of these ideas in this animation.