Planning

Today was my planning day and I'm happy with the outcome. I spent the afternoon fleshing out my storyboard; going through my music and working out how many frames for each part of the song (i.e. image/idea corresponding to each part of the song) and then I created a very rough animatic to help me further work out the timing and flesh out my ideas. The animatic was a great idea because it helped me expand on my storyboard with more of an idea of what I will do for each part of the song, and get a better sense of timing. Timing and planning is the most important part of this animation because it's straight ahead and you also can't just go back to fix it up (well you can, but it would be very very difficult).

The intended technique for this experimental animation will be to use a combination of instant coffee, red cloth, leaves, and a marker. The coffee is great because I will be using it both as the granuels (so it will be like working with sand) and also as a liquid (so I can paint with it using my fingers and/or a paintbrush and maybe use a blowing technique where you blow the liquid with a straw to make pictures). It is a great mix of textures and materials, and the coffee also has it's own unique mix of textures, for example even when it is liquified there are still granuels within the liquid which will give an interesting look to my work.

The visuals for my piece will be partly abstract and partly a story. In the verses of the song the images will reflect the lyrics in an abstract way. The red cloth will be the main "character" that the audience will follow through the song. In the chorus of the song I want to build up an image slowly using liquified coffee and then a marker. This will be a bit more abstract but will keep the audiences interest because hopefully by the third part of the build up there will be a visible image...or it could be an abstract image/mixture of tone and line in which the audience can come to their own conclusions. This is something I still have to decide.

I want so use animation principles as much as I can in my piece and focus a lot on timing, stretch and squash, anticipation, ease in and out, etc. even though it will be a bit abstract. I think in such an experimental piece it might be easy to be too flowy and forget to use incorporate these principles.

My aim is to captivate my audience and draw them into my piece and make them continuously wonder what will happen next. =)