Fields & Frames #6: Evaluation

 From the start of this project, I found it really hard to come up with an idea as there was no direct, specific brief. Because of this, it took me a really long time to decide what I wanted to do, and unfortunately, I left myself very minimal time (2 weeks) to do the whole project. As I originally planned to do the whole stop motion animation - which is a very laborious, time-consuming medium - I had to adapt my idea to being a concept idea with a production pack. Despite this, I still wanted to have a go animating, so I created a short clip as an example of what I plan to do. 

The overall concept was developed from finding artists and artwork that I like, Particularly Stanley Donwood. His work on his graphic novel 'Bad Isalnd' was a prominent reference for this project. I loved the way he captured big terrifying moments through lino prints. He took all possible disasters, natural and human-made, and created a beautifully tragic story that is meant to be an allegory for mankind. I was really inspired by the powerful storytelling through his prints and wanted to create my own version which would be closer to reality. Because the last (almost) two years have been quite crazy with all that has happened, I found myself thinking about it more and more, and during it all, the world felt so still. This is partly due to the many lockdowns. But the things that did carry on became more prominent as everything practically else stopped moving. I wanted to make the issues the world faced prominent and compile them into a short animation. It would almost be like a document of this time. 

I was pretty pleased with the storyboards as I worked hard to figure out how to combine all the events into a morphing animation, and I was extremely satisfied with the outcome. This is partly because when going through and explaining it to friends they were struck with how intense, dark and crazy it all seemed, which really got them to realise the extent of things that had happened. It was interesting to see their reactions to this storyboard and then ask them how they would normally react to seeing a notification about it on their phone. Their responses were that it became almost normal to have such shocking things happen but because some of the events had been condensed down into this morphing story, it really struck home to them that this isn't just a little short film plan, but it was reality. 

The short animation created worked really well. I think that the combination of flickering live backgrounds with digital illustration was a perfect combination, particularly when using a monochrome colour palette. 

Even though I was not able to make the whole animation, the process of making the short clip was very interesting. I learned how to make a GIF file through photoshop as well as layering footage in Premiere Pro. I also learned that in order to come up with an idea I start by thinking about the process I want to work with first and then develop the idea. The idea part was definitely a struggle as I am not very good at coming up with a story but was able to reflect on real-life to develop a narrative. It is definitely recognisable that I need to work on my time management skills, particularly with the beginning section of this project - coming up with the idea. I think if I had given myself more time, I would be able to achieve completing the whole animation and possibly develop it further. However, despite this, I am happy with the outcome, but I definitely know I could do better. It's not been my favourite project as I am not crazy passionate about it but I do feel like it was an important one as it allowed me to reflect on the past year more.