Q-tips and Clothes Pins

We watched several shorts in class yesterday that were very interesting. Before we even discussed the Norman McLaren work I was thinking it reminded me of the part in Fantasia when the string dances to the music. The tongue used in Jan Svankmajer’s Dimensions in Dialogue was a little too gross for me, but the idea of the short was very unique. After watching Kaboom I was very excited about doing the Multi-Plane Animation assignment. I’ve been gathering items to use from around my apartment. My roommate will think I’ve gone crazy when she comes home from work one of these days to find me playing with clothes pins and Q-tips like a kid would with Barbies. I’m going to fill a bookbag full of small objects from Happy Meal toys to jelly beans to soap; whatever will fit.

Elements Project

For my Elements Project I’m working on the water and wind. I’m trying to animate a fish swimming and a tornado spinning just to see if can do it. I just realized that my pink fish is going to appear huge when projected on the screen because he takes up the whole frame when I draw on my little film strip. I really want to see if my animation will look like a fish swimming and a tornado spinning. I’m using sharpies because they’re the easiest for me to draw small details. I am also going to throw in some other techniques. Between my roommate and elements project partner, Meghann, we have a pretty good assortment of nail polish that I definitely would like to incorporate some of them into my strip. I also like the idea of salt creating little boxes when painted over. Maybe if I scatter them through parts of my animation I can make it appear as if bubbles are floating through the water and debris is flying out of the tornado. In choosing to do an animated strip I made my work somewhat tedious, but I’m so curious about the final product that I don’t mind. I understand that if any other group is also doing a rather literal interpretation of the four elements then we will be watching several fishies swim across the screen, but none will come out exactly like mine. I haven’t even started on the wind element even through I’ve planned it out. Meghann and I have also discussed how we would like to transition from one element to another. I’m probably going to work on my strip after class because every time we go to class I get to thinking about what I can do to make my project more interesting.