THE PROCESS:
Find the Perfect Song
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"Cowards" by Raleigh Ritchie was the springboard for all of the storytelling.
One of the lyrics in the chorus is "I'll be waiting for you at the pearly gates // baby I adore you // but I'm afraid to say." It is a story of a boy so completely enamored with a girl that he would wait for her at heaven's doors yet for some reason is too cowardly to commit. He imagines every possible scenario, even a car ride, going wrong in order to protect himself from the vulnerability of falling in love. |
Storyboarding//Coloring
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Only 30 colors were used for the entirety of the project. I wanted to stick to dusty , desaturated tones. Each tone has a single highlight and shadow to give the figures dimension. There are no pure blacks or cool browns. I simply used dark purples in order to give the faces life and warmth. My background in painting and physically mixing colors helped to pull the color palette together into a cohesive library that breathed life into the animation.
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At this point, I had a rough idea of the mood and the story I wanted to tell. Now the only main hurdle I had to jump over was how to turn a fictional idea into actual compositions and dynamic movements. By storyboarding and drawing out rough doodles I could envision exactly how I wanted my shots to be composed and move onto videotaping.
Directing
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Because of the rotoscoped style of animation, I was (for the most part) heavily dependent on video to fuel the imagery. During this process I learned how to compose shots utilizing video as my medium. As a painter, I am familiar with one, singular, static composition. Video inevitably has movement so one of the main challenges I faced was approaching how to create a dynamic composition that was continually interesting.
I also had to learn how to direct my friends to tell a story and convey romance through only nonverbal communication. |
