Proof of D&AD submission

Responsive WWF Storyboard

Here is the storyboard for the WWF collaborative brief. It was done by both myself and Bex Dawson. Bex created the collaged images to get the idea of what we wanted the project to look like, and I created the text frames and compiled the final storyboards in a professional manner. 

Our final piece will be stop motion and built and animated by both myself and Bex in equal parts.

Responsive Collaborative Project. WWF Rainforest concept art

As part of my research into the rainforest, I have done a couple of drawings to help me understand what the trees, plants and animals look like in the Rainforest. This will help us further develop our idea and help to design the set.

While I was really looking forward to doing stop motion, I really like the style of the first drawing and I think doing our animation in this style might be faster and easier, whilst still being a strong piece of art. I will suggest these ideas to my partner.

Responsive Collaborative Project: Stop motion research

To help us determine exactly how we were going to build and animate our idea, Bex did some research into set materials and other stop motion animations. I really like the delicate card cut out designs but did not feel this would get our message across well enough as our idea is about how the rainforest is being cut down, and making an entire animation out of paper did not seem right. We decided to use found materials to create a more natural world, using recycled paper and foliage to create the rainforest, and use old coke cans, plastic bottles and non-recyclable materials for the factories and the dead forest, as we felt this would be more eye-opening to watch the forest being cut down, factories appearing and rubbish and pollution destroying what was once beautiful.

Responsive WWF research

As research into the WWF project for D&AD, I looked into past WWF campaigns to see how they present their facts and images to get their message across.

I also looked into other animations that are campaigning against climate change and trying to make people aware of environmental issues. This helped us to think of ideas to make our animation less light hearted and more hardhitting. To get peoples attention and convince them to do their bit to save the environment.

Flow, Form and Force: Some final images.

Rhythm is a dancer. (12 short 10 second poses moving across a space.)

The short 10 second poses task was quite funny to do but at the start I found I was taking too long drawing each pose and running out of time. As the drawings went on, I found a simpler, easier way to draw the figures, with shapes and continuous line.

Like a Puppet on a String. (12 short 10 second poses of squashing and stretching.)

I had the same issue with these drawings in that I kept running out of time,  I also found that, when I tried to draw each pose like the person was staying in the same place, there was quite a cool effect from drawing over the top of each drawing, but it quickly got too confusing and just became a mess of lines. This meant that I went back to drawing across the page.

Ah, Push it! (5-10 minute poses of someone doing a push or pull movement.)

This task I found I could put more detail into the drawings, but I found myself putting too much detail into the first couple and running out of time again. The first of the two images I have posted on here I thought had worked quite well, the proportions and pose seemed right, but it looks like she's boxing instead of pulling a rope, which is what she was supposed to be doing. The second drawing I think worked better.



Strike a pose! (The longer 20-30 minute poses.)

 This was my favourite of the 4 briefs as it meant I could actually get some kind of detail in and spend some time working on the proportions. I think the one at the top worked best and the one at the bottom I found the most challenging because of the angle I was drawing from. 


Overall, I think I enjoyed this project a lot more than I thought I would, as I've never really been a fan of drawing from life, however after this project I think I would like to do more to work on my drawing ability.

Visual Language- Drawing sounds

Here are my final visualisations of sound presented in animation.

Firework Scream

Monster Blob

Rapid Warble

Fried Egg

Dripping Tap

I definitely preferred animating the sounds to drawing the sounds static, I found it much easier to visualise the sounds moving as it seemed to have more effect and relate more to the sounds in question.

Drawing Sounds

 Here are my Sound Drawings for my 10 sounds, followed by my 5 final drawings. If I'm honest, I really didn't enjoy this project. I found it really hard to draw sounds that change and move as a still image, as I don't think my drawings really represent the sounds that well. I'm hoping my animations of the final 5 represent the sounds a bit better. I would have used more colour in these drawings, but I could not work out which colours looked right in my head with each sound when I was drawing.

(The final 5)

Oskar Fischinger- An Optical Poem (1938)

Oskar Fischinger is known for his animations of sounds. This piece starts out with each note starting out as different sized circles depending on their volume, and each fades into the distance, getting smaller, as the note fades and gets replaced by other notes. Different sounds or instruments seem to be represented by different colours and shapes. The strings at the start are circles, whereas later, the woodwind sounding instruments are squares and lines. 

The Dot and the Line- A Romance in Lower Mathmatics.

The Dot and the Line is a short animation that tells the story of a line that falls in love with a dot. I like the way the sounds chosen represent each of the shapes, for example the squiggle has a wild and unruly and fun sound, whereas the the line has a smooth sound and the dot has a upbeat bouncy sound. 
This animation is mostly about the story, however moments like with the doorbell, the sound is represented in harsh red lines. And sounds and feelings are embodied in the shape of the line. 

In this animation, I think the parts with the squiggle are the best representations of sound as image.

Disney's Fantasia (1940) Visualising Sounds

Disney's Fantasia is a good example of an artist visualising a sound in animation, using colour and movements to represent sounds.

In the first clip you can see the different shapes that represent each instrument at the start, and it becomes more abstracted as it goes on. The shapes get bigger as the sound gets louder and quicker sweeping sounds are represented by sweeping movements of colour on screen. The really fast part of the song around 4 minutes is shown by many quickly appearing and disappearing dots and beams of light, separated by the loud imposing sounds shown by large imposing images.

Fantasia also has some less abstracted elements to it, as shown here in the dance of the sugar plum fairy. Here, the song is represented by the movements of the fairies dance. When the music sweeps down low, the fairies sweep low and so on.