THIS brief was made for me, and it also links to my first brief and dissertation very nicely. How do I represent emotions in a piece of work and how do i want the viewer to feel when they see them?
I want the viewer to be deeply moved, drawn into a reflective space where they are contemplating their own memories and emotions. i want to evoke a sense of nostalgia, one that not only brings the warmth of the past but also the longing for something once held close to the heart, a feeling that can no longer be attained. a bit bittersweet, a quiet appreciation for times that have passed but remain treasured. an acknowledgment that while the past cannot be reclaimed, its beauty and significance are still touching their soul.
I want the viewer to be deeply moved, drawn into a reflective space where they are contemplating their own memories and emotions. i want to evoke a sense of nostalgia, one that not only brings the warmth of the past but also the longing for something once held close to the heart, a feeling that can no longer be attained. a bit bittersweet, a quiet appreciation for times that have passed but remain treasured. an acknowledgment that while the past cannot be reclaimed, its beauty and significance are still touching their soul.
to relate this to a place is to relate it to a comfort or a feeling within ones mind. where is a persons 'happy place?' what is the journey someone takes to finally get to that place of serenity? I want to explore this with the use of abstract shapes and compositions, maybe entangling some photography in, as its very easy way to capture moments in time. some collaging ontop etc.
Place has turned into a collaboration project with myself and imie. we both wanted to create something quite similar, showing the more emotional and abstract side of having attachment to a specific place or events that occur in life. awareness of these, and also trying to relate and let the viewers reflect on things in their own lives.
one thing i wanted to make abundantly clear is the message and reason we are doing what we are. Not necessarily the collab aspect but more the work itself. To me its 'to convey the challenges posed by trauma and past experiences, and to show that progress and healing will be unattainable without the acceptance and willingness to move forward’. If I had to say this in more detail it would be, Unresolved trauma and past experiences can create significant emotional and psychological barriers in life, these difficulties can manifest as feelings of pain, regret, guilt or fear, which can hinder our personal growth and overall wellbeing. The key message is that progress requires a conscious effort to confront and understand these experiences rather than avoiding or suppressing them. Acceptance doesn’t mean approving of or condoning what happened but acknowledging it as a part of your life. By doing this you can create space and release its grasp on your emotions and identity. Moving forward involves integrating these experiences into your understanding of yourself in a way that empowers rather than limits you. Without acceptance and the willingness to grow beyond the past, the emotional weight of those experiences is likely to persist, preventing true healing.
one thing i wanted to make abundantly clear is the message and reason we are doing what we are. Not necessarily the collab aspect but more the work itself. To me its 'to convey the challenges posed by trauma and past experiences, and to show that progress and healing will be unattainable without the acceptance and willingness to move forward’. If I had to say this in more detail it would be, Unresolved trauma and past experiences can create significant emotional and psychological barriers in life, these difficulties can manifest as feelings of pain, regret, guilt or fear, which can hinder our personal growth and overall wellbeing. The key message is that progress requires a conscious effort to confront and understand these experiences rather than avoiding or suppressing them. Acceptance doesn’t mean approving of or condoning what happened but acknowledging it as a part of your life. By doing this you can create space and release its grasp on your emotions and identity. Moving forward involves integrating these experiences into your understanding of yourself in a way that empowers rather than limits you. Without acceptance and the willingness to grow beyond the past, the emotional weight of those experiences is likely to persist, preventing true healing.
to link this to place as a theme, it all revolves around the story we have created and the main place that this story and the characters are attached to. this and the emotional standing they have within themselves and what they need to do in order to accept and move on.
The story we have created is basically about to boys, who are friends, and one disappears one day due to an argument they have on the beach (the key place). he didn't in fact disappear because of this argument but rather because something happens to him, this part isn't important for the main reason behind the story, but sets up the other character to go through what they do. the character we follow now goes through trauma and constantly blames themselves for their friends disappearance. this is all in his head too, all that you see will be in his head, all his thoughts and past memories of this moment and how he feels. His battle emotionally with the disappeared friend. first thing we show is the argument, the final moment of these two with each other, and the conversation they had. is basically a fight because they are from different backgrounds, one tries to understand how the other is feeling but he wont allow him too because he believes that he wont understand. This is showing how sensitive a friendship can be, and how easy it is for one moment to effect it. especially with friends its so important to let your boundaries down, because they might be the only people who will actually understand you, and even if they don't, they aren't going to think of you differently when its about something you can't control. so anyway this argument leads the other boy to run away and its the last time he is ever (physically) seen again by his friend.
One day the boy goes back to the beach to (in his head, a dream or just a fantasy thought), and he sees an anonymous figure. You dont get to find this out but this figure is the friend, this is trying to show that hes rejected and tried to forget about his past, not accepting it and allowing himself to move on, but just neglecting his feelings, building up all the negative in an unhealthy way. He is curious and yet scared of this figure. figure gets closer and eventually makes contact, this leads to us seeing the arguement i mentioned, and aslo abstract representations of both characters. after this, we get another scene of the character on the water, falling deeper in, and the figure pulls him out, but he recognises the figure as his friend, who then tells him that its okay, and he can wake up and be at peace. which he does and then is back on the beach on his own, seemingly waking up.
there will quite a bit of symbolism, like black bars on the left and right to make it feel more like a home video, the dissappeared friend will be the colour blue, like the ocean, to show that main character sees them both the same way, a previous comfort and now a place of distress and trauma. the door is al the thoughts being neglected and forcfully forgotten. thats why itll be so ominous at the start and then dissapeare at the end when hes finally come at peace with it all.
there will also be a message at the end when we have the scene of the character waking up on the beach. something along the lines of 'its okay to let go of things and move on, you are only stopping yourself from growing'
One day the boy goes back to the beach to (in his head, a dream or just a fantasy thought), and he sees an anonymous figure. You dont get to find this out but this figure is the friend, this is trying to show that hes rejected and tried to forget about his past, not accepting it and allowing himself to move on, but just neglecting his feelings, building up all the negative in an unhealthy way. He is curious and yet scared of this figure. figure gets closer and eventually makes contact, this leads to us seeing the arguement i mentioned, and aslo abstract representations of both characters. after this, we get another scene of the character on the water, falling deeper in, and the figure pulls him out, but he recognises the figure as his friend, who then tells him that its okay, and he can wake up and be at peace. which he does and then is back on the beach on his own, seemingly waking up.
there will quite a bit of symbolism, like black bars on the left and right to make it feel more like a home video, the dissappeared friend will be the colour blue, like the ocean, to show that main character sees them both the same way, a previous comfort and now a place of distress and trauma. the door is al the thoughts being neglected and forcfully forgotten. thats why itll be so ominous at the start and then dissapeare at the end when hes finally come at peace with it all.
there will also be a message at the end when we have the scene of the character waking up on the beach. something along the lines of 'its okay to let go of things and move on, you are only stopping yourself from growing'
these are just a couple of mock ups i've created, testing out the frame rate and boiling effect. this has made me realize that we should physically create all the aspects and scan them in to create the boiling effects, as the black door doesnt sit well . The text is alright, i think it should be boiling too to not make it too conflicting. but again just mock ups.
This starting point was where and Imogen realized that we should try and make the animations a bit smoother. Even though the background is quite stiff in a sense, with how it is just multiple sheets of watercolour on a loop. The parts where there is movement should not be as choppy.
So this animation above, the part where the sand comes up, was comprised of four parts, each the same with the whole scene being a little bit higher than the previous, revealing the sand.
So this animation above, the part where the sand comes up, was comprised of four parts, each the same with the whole scene being a little bit higher than the previous, revealing the sand.
as much as this works and can be affective in some cases, its not really what we want for it, especially since there is also going to be the main characters head (back of his head) appearing as well. this part is symbolism that we are currently in his head, as it is the first time we actually see him. along with the black ominous door in the background, being liminal and uneasy, not very real.
taking this into account like ive said, it was later made much smoother, two separate times.
taking this into account like ive said, it was later made much smoother, two separate times.
I dont particularly like that we also decided to move the ocean and door upwards partially too, and also when these are all put together, the frame rate was wrong and so his hair would immediately slow up going from the second to the third Gif.
Also after this we started to not include the texture on the water, and we preferred it a lot more to the texture, so then we changed the start and second sections one more time
because we changed these to not include the pastel texture on the water, we also redid the next scene of the viewer looking at his full body sat on the beach. Moved the sand horizon line, so it wasn't creating a cut through his face with his eyes, and used a lot more changes with the water so it didn't feel as still in some parts. I really like how these changes turned out.
moving on from this section, is where we frist see the main plot essentially of the whole animation, the spooky silhouette that represents the traumatic memory of main character 'aidan'.
Here he is. we wanted a simple yet contrasting effect on this character, something that would be easily recognizable and in the world of this animation, off putting. as this world is currently a headpsace/dreamscape, we made everything a bit saturated on purpose, and so at the end of it, it probably wouldn't have mattered what colour this character is. but black is dark and mysterious, not necessarily positive or negative, just a void of something. prefect for what this animation is about. also the cliche choice. but if we are to change this characters colour, it would be further at the end when aidan is less afraid and intimidated by it, a change of heart perhaps, that changes his perspective.
so the next part is him looking over to the side. this comes straight after we see him sat near the water. the emphasis on this part is that its casual, theres no build up to looking at something. in the characters mind this place is perhaps an escape or simply it just is. we then shift to what he is looking at..
the final outcome of this scene.
its so interesting how a shadow can easily make something look better. it makes it make more sense definitely, but now with aidan having a shadow and the silhouette character not, it makes it seem even more eerie. personally.
we did remake this one final time before moving on, giving him the looping boil and making him ever so slightly larger, this was then changed again though later to build up a bit of suspense for the next scene.
for the next part, we see aidans reaction to the silhouette, which was a fairly easy change and then change back, also getting a quick POV from the silhouette. Coincidentally, when i saved this gif, it just changed colour (it did this multiple times and i couldnt figure out how or why..) it however works as like a 'this is how it sees the world, so we kept it in. we wanted the silhouette to then come closer to aidan after this. we decided on it to be a blink. at first we had it as a single blink, and then he was suddenly in your face. but that felt too fast and not right for his lingering demeanor.
the blink scene.
This scene i find took the longest to sort and figure out the pacing and framing of. It was case of:
- Making sure it was clear that the blink and POV was from Aidan himself
- Keeping the atmosphere unnerving as the silhouette came closer and closer
- And making sure the scene that came after was an honest reaction to what was happening and that it made sense
This scene i find took the longest to sort and figure out the pacing and framing of. It was case of:
- Making sure it was clear that the blink and POV was from Aidan himself
- Keeping the atmosphere unnerving as the silhouette came closer and closer
- And making sure the scene that came after was an honest reaction to what was happening and that it made sense
This was the first attempt.
As you can see and comparing it to the final version we made, the blink is too slow, and it instantly appearing in front of the POV's face isn't the sort of scary we wanted this character to give off. And even though it is still a silhouette, the actual face of it changes. This change doesn't matter at first because it was intentionally there to show that as it gets closer to Aidan, he starts to realize that it's meant to represent something. But this was also rather distracting and would be more cohesive if it were just the same silhouette from the previous frames.
We didn't change this for a while, maybe almost a month. But noticing all the things I listed off before and the fact that they weren't being portrayed, it was clear we had to.
We didn't change this for a while, maybe almost a month. But noticing all the things I listed off before and the fact that they weren't being portrayed, it was clear we had to.
These are all playing around with silhouette coming closer and closer to Aidan. But the blink was still too slow.
Below is the final iteration. The blink being much faster, and once the silhouette is super close, his boiling affect gets faster, as to represent the panic that Aidan is going through at the current moment. This is then quickly shifted to us seeing Aidans reaction
Below is the final iteration. The blink being much faster, and once the silhouette is super close, his boiling affect gets faster, as to represent the panic that Aidan is going through at the current moment. This is then quickly shifted to us seeing Aidans reaction
This is how it all looked together
Moving on from this, the next part was transitioning from that to the 'Abstract part' of the animation. this was already decided from the beginning. they would have a small interaction, looking at each other, and a possible link via hand touch or something similar, which would then trigger the memory from the past to be shown.
This is what it ended up looking like. He got absorbed.
this part is now the longest in the animation. It is essentially the part where Aidan faces his own mind and thoughts, visiting the memory that has made his so depressed and self deprecating.
This is how that memory goes:
Aidan and his friend, Oliver, were on the beach like they usually are, But Oliver could tell there was something wrong with Aidan as he wasn't acting himself ( to myself and Imie, Aidan has always been a glass half empty sort of person, always seeing the more negative parts of life. Growing up in a bad home with bad parents etc. but Oliver was the only friend he really had and the only one who knew about things. A comfort person in his life). Oliver confronts him asking what wrongs, Aidan reflects this but Oliver is persistent. This make Aidan angry and he lashes out at Oliver saying he will never understand. This leads them both to get upset but more specifically Oliver, who after this interaction runs away and is never seen again but Aidan.. ever. So now to present time, Aidan thinks he is to blame for Oliver being gone, he cant quite make up his mind about how hes vanished but all he knows for sure, or at least to himself, is that he was the last person to see Oliver and now he is gone. So this place, the beach, the place he would always go with Oliver, is now a cursed place that holds not only the most comforting memories from his past but also the worst too.
During this part as you could see the conversation they had and the emotional battle they had between them in the back, we also wanted snippets of the events to appear, so we made a few scenes comprising of there facial expressions and body language during it. Adding a filter over the top to make it feel old timey ( this was more for fun and to make it feel separate to the rest of the animation, and it works quite well). The filter was made simply by adding an slightly transparent yellow layer above the whole scene.
Aidan and his friend, Oliver, were on the beach like they usually are, But Oliver could tell there was something wrong with Aidan as he wasn't acting himself ( to myself and Imie, Aidan has always been a glass half empty sort of person, always seeing the more negative parts of life. Growing up in a bad home with bad parents etc. but Oliver was the only friend he really had and the only one who knew about things. A comfort person in his life). Oliver confronts him asking what wrongs, Aidan reflects this but Oliver is persistent. This make Aidan angry and he lashes out at Oliver saying he will never understand. This leads them both to get upset but more specifically Oliver, who after this interaction runs away and is never seen again but Aidan.. ever. So now to present time, Aidan thinks he is to blame for Oliver being gone, he cant quite make up his mind about how hes vanished but all he knows for sure, or at least to himself, is that he was the last person to see Oliver and now he is gone. So this place, the beach, the place he would always go with Oliver, is now a cursed place that holds not only the most comforting memories from his past but also the worst too.
During this part as you could see the conversation they had and the emotional battle they had between them in the back, we also wanted snippets of the events to appear, so we made a few scenes comprising of there facial expressions and body language during it. Adding a filter over the top to make it feel old timey ( this was more for fun and to make it feel separate to the rest of the animation, and it works quite well). The filter was made simply by adding an slightly transparent yellow layer above the whole scene.
Just for comparison so the filter is clear, here is the boil of the characters before and after it was added
All together this is what it looks like
I can without a doubt say that this next scene is mine and Imies favourite part.
Aidan mindlessly floating on top of the water. after reliving the event that went on in his past. Sound plays a very important part during this scene too, when transitioning to the next part where he tries to accept death and thinks this is the only way he can move on with his life. Its vital i think to give that sense of alone and stillness. This decision was his.
These are the next scenes as Gifs and then them all put together with sound.
we purposely made this part feel long, as he is floating there with his thoughts and just being in this space, we too are going to sit with him and think. What is going on? Why is he in the middle of the water?
These are the next scenes as Gifs and then them all put together with sound.
we purposely made this part feel long, as he is floating there with his thoughts and just being in this space, we too are going to sit with him and think. What is going on? Why is he in the middle of the water?
After this is quite an important part of the animation, where we see the silhouette for a final time pull Aidan out of the water and be with his face to face.
Coming to the end now, we go straight back to the starting scene 'WAKE UP'. and then..
This sunset imitates the door from the starting scene. almost as if he imagined it from the very start, woahhh. no but seriously, its to give the animation a bookend or circular narrative. A technique in film making to create a sense of closure and show the characters journey. in this case, its showing that Aidan hasn't really been anywhere, hes just been deep in his head, more than likely this will be interpreted as hes been asleep.
Not alot of research went into this project. Myself and Imie did of course take a lot of inspiration from things we have played and seen before, some examples of this being super mario galaxy and the way the music and sounds really play a part to create the atmosphere of each galaxy. Omori was a big inspiration for Imie and the style of the characters. And then some colour theory went into play. Red being a representation of stress and anger. its quite a negative colour when relating it to emotions. And green for Oliver and relating this to peacefulness and kindness.
Also the colours green and red are opposite on the colour wheel, this can easily be interpreted as these two characters being polar opposites personality wise. Him waking up at the end with green eyes is the show that he has found some peace within himself and can now move on from the past.
Anyway, enjoy the final version :)
Anyway, enjoy the final version :)