Longtime and a Good Morning tooo, a good way to start pouring out all that's been in my head.
Last few months have been very exciting and kept me away from updating this open diary. Let me begin with my last project, my first short stop motion animation film finally got made!
Work was never more fun. Not completed though, typically of most student projects, but it should see the light of the day pretty soon. It has to, I want it to!
Looking back at the journey of grappling with the techniques of animation and story writing, all the struggle surely bore some rewards and brought me to my destination. There was some charm in it, besides with the proverbial...'medium is the message' I made up my mind that the final medium of animation would be sand and some fusion. :)
The mediums so intriguing. Much like the shadow art I have been interested in, only this time it is a blend of articulated movement captured in frames to be played back as a smooth animated film. Sand animation depends on the legibility of forms by drawing with sand. The best part, its like child's play u make and destroy then you make and then you destroy....its the fastest compulsively iterative process I have ever been involved in. Like most creative tasks...it requires that drive to keep improving and oooodles of patience!
The whole experience was meditative of sorts (with the risk of sounding tooo spiritual....but its true). I guess a lot owes to the environment or my workspace. There was just the dark studio, the light table, a bag with grains of sand, some tools, my laptop with earphones listening to soothing and inspiring music and me at it to get the best frame I can (Ofcourse theres a word of caution, I learned it the hard way: never work in such darkness, its bad for one's eyesight. Preferably use a low intensity ambient light. Eyecare is most important!)
Nevertheless the uplifting experience of creating couldn't help the manegerial aspect of a project. Its easy to lose track of time while doing, and forget the preparations when your project needs to be presented in front of a jury! Well...alls well that ends well...works just fine here.
I may have been badly dressed, shamefully late and embarassingly hurrying in with a video editting interface on the laptop instead of the final film, but.....
the project here was much more than a project. Not to play around with words but, I felt a strong emotional and intellectual connect that was yearning to further reach out to the audience. Well, the film was an abstract narrative, but since I had to present it, all my thoughts were out in full honesty and gusto!
The best part was that.....none of those ideas or thoughts were original. As apalling as it may sound, I would like to admit it and quite fervently too. Ideas that crossed my mind were always around millenia before I was born. What I liked best is the way they all came together at that very moment when the final idea for the film was conceived and not to exaggerate it, it was literally overnight, over a waking dream! Serendipity.....methinks :).
(Yet another aside: Whoa...this is the first time I could vent out such crazy rambling about the actual 'process' of the project! Wonder why formal reports have to be formal? I'd rather express the 'technique' informally...:()
So, until I endeavour to 'completely finish' my film. All I can share are a few frames that I laboured over to get the best of my skills. Here they are, Oh and by the way the film's name is 'The Elusive i'. I love riddles :) and I guess there are more like me...the films definitely not a popular entertainer.....blaah..no way its a bit too abstract to sit back and shut off ....
And so...the film just thrives on the effervesence of questions and queries... to whom answers lie within each and everyone of us. So to get started with...What is i?.....(My interpretation, coming soon....)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKTblPUVKuE
Last few months have been very exciting and kept me away from updating this open diary. Let me begin with my last project, my first short stop motion animation film finally got made!
Work was never more fun. Not completed though, typically of most student projects, but it should see the light of the day pretty soon. It has to, I want it to!
Looking back at the journey of grappling with the techniques of animation and story writing, all the struggle surely bore some rewards and brought me to my destination. There was some charm in it, besides with the proverbial...'medium is the message' I made up my mind that the final medium of animation would be sand and some fusion. :)
The mediums so intriguing. Much like the shadow art I have been interested in, only this time it is a blend of articulated movement captured in frames to be played back as a smooth animated film. Sand animation depends on the legibility of forms by drawing with sand. The best part, its like child's play u make and destroy then you make and then you destroy....its the fastest compulsively iterative process I have ever been involved in. Like most creative tasks...it requires that drive to keep improving and oooodles of patience!
The whole experience was meditative of sorts (with the risk of sounding tooo spiritual....but its true). I guess a lot owes to the environment or my workspace. There was just the dark studio, the light table, a bag with grains of sand, some tools, my laptop with earphones listening to soothing and inspiring music and me at it to get the best frame I can (Ofcourse theres a word of caution, I learned it the hard way: never work in such darkness, its bad for one's eyesight. Preferably use a low intensity ambient light. Eyecare is most important!)
Nevertheless the uplifting experience of creating couldn't help the manegerial aspect of a project. Its easy to lose track of time while doing, and forget the preparations when your project needs to be presented in front of a jury! Well...alls well that ends well...works just fine here.
I may have been badly dressed, shamefully late and embarassingly hurrying in with a video editting interface on the laptop instead of the final film, but.....
the project here was much more than a project. Not to play around with words but, I felt a strong emotional and intellectual connect that was yearning to further reach out to the audience. Well, the film was an abstract narrative, but since I had to present it, all my thoughts were out in full honesty and gusto!
The best part was that.....none of those ideas or thoughts were original. As apalling as it may sound, I would like to admit it and quite fervently too. Ideas that crossed my mind were always around millenia before I was born. What I liked best is the way they all came together at that very moment when the final idea for the film was conceived and not to exaggerate it, it was literally overnight, over a waking dream! Serendipity.....methinks :).
(Yet another aside: Whoa...this is the first time I could vent out such crazy rambling about the actual 'process' of the project! Wonder why formal reports have to be formal? I'd rather express the 'technique' informally...:()
So, until I endeavour to 'completely finish' my film. All I can share are a few frames that I laboured over to get the best of my skills. Here they are, Oh and by the way the film's name is 'The Elusive i'. I love riddles :) and I guess there are more like me...the films definitely not a popular entertainer.....blaah..no way its a bit too abstract to sit back and shut off ....
And so...the film just thrives on the effervesence of questions and queries... to whom answers lie within each and everyone of us. So to get started with...What is i?.....(My interpretation, coming soon....)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKTblPUVKuE
Never did mention my interpretation, well here goes: http://www.coroflot.com/chitrac/stop-motion-animation-project
ReplyDeleteAlso the project report that contains all the details: http://issuu.com/chitrachandrashekhar/docs/p2report2010