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shots of the film experimentation process. techniques attempted were as follows:

WORKED:

household bleach

mouthwash (somewhat)

food colouring

acetone (potentially ruined film)

bicarbonate soda and lemon juice

taping fragments of other film on top

scratching

hole punch

acrylic

alcohol based markers

DIDN’T WORK:

hair bleach

vinegar

gouache

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life drawing sequences in gif format. the purpose of the exercise was to be able to depict shadow quickly and accurately when movement is involved

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scans from weeks 16-17, more hand & feet exercises using charcoal, with week 16 focusing on tonal shading, and week 17 focusing on showing volume with line, building up shapes first using bold strokes to show the path of shadows on a figure. ive also included extra gesture practice, facial expressions, and dynamic exercises from another life class that focused on depicting animated movement.

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weeks 14-15, gesture + hands and feet

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my final video for the stop motion workshop, on the theme of identity.

comments on the software & editing process:

ive only used dragonframe twice while using the university studio to do approximately 6 seconds of animation. the rest was done on an app called stop motion studio, which had useful features like onion skinning and the ability to prolong frames or reverse their order. stop motion studio, although convenient on its own, became increasingly more inconvenient the more i used to animate paint on glass, purely because of the mobile phone element. as mentioned previously, the camera could stay still with my current setup, but i would have to tap my phone to capture a frame, and tap it again to focus the camera. my reluctance to touch my phone is reflected in how many frames are somewhat blurry. as i was doubly reluctant to edit the frames apart from deleting and duplicating within the app, i resorted to editing the videos themselves while making the final result.

as seen here, ive repeated sequences for the rain and layered them over other sequences in order to form an atmosphere over the liquid narrative ive created within this film.

frames preceding the “heart squish” were reversed, then duplicated and placed in between the same frames that were not reversed.

i think that in doing so, i had better control of when each frame would take place. i did this in order to achieve a more grotesque visualisation of the action, because i wanted to strengthen the reactional value of that part. in hindsight, however, i think it could have been done within the app itself had i been brave enough to experiment with its capabilities. 

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a compilation of all my stop motion tests of sufficient length. at first, i had trouble keeping the camera still and used various items such as the edge of my desk or a cup to hold the camera. eventually i got hold of a tripod for my phone so that i would be able to continue my film at home, which helped a lot. however, i chose to hang it from a bookend so that the magnification levels wouldnt decrease the picture quality as much. as a result, it wasnt perfect because every time i would move to capture the shot the camera would shake slightly. this is a technical problem that i must figure out how to solve as i plan to make paint-on-glass sequences for my film at the end of the year. 

the tripod itself is sufficient, but because i use my phone for a lot of things, it can be a pain to take it out and put it back on the clamp. otherwise, the issue of it changing the angle or stillness of the camera in a sequence is (to a degree) solvable through onion skinning.

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a comparison of both my setups, one at the university studio, and the one i have at home. evidently, my setup at home is quite limited, and mostly makeshift. both setups had the same issue where the glass would reflect whatever was above it, like the checkered ceiling at the studio. 

to solve this, a black blanket was laid across the camera stand and the unused lights, and black tape was used to cover the logo of the camera as well. at home, i stuck another blackboard to the bottom of my shelf, and bought a black phone case. even with these solutions, however, i still had to zoom in with the camera lens in both cases because the glass still reflected the edges, leaving me very little space to work with.

to further enhance the appearance of the paint, lighting had to come from either side of the glass so that it was even, and you could see the path of the rubbed-out marks left behind and the textures of the paint. with my home setup however, i had to make do with the only “lamp” i had which is a ring light i use for video calls. i positioned this to one side and hoped that the mirror on the other side of the glass reflected at least a tiny amount of light to illuminate the other side of the glass (it probably didnt work but i did it anyway). i think next time i might have to borrow someone elses lamp or a torch.

as for my research on method, i did some digging and found an interview of miyo sato, a paint-on-glass animator who inspires me through her work on the anime mob psycho 100. here, she talks about her experience animating with the medium, and reveals the setup she has in her studio. i watched a tutorial/demonstration by patrick jenkins on his method, and found that he uses gouache mixed with vegetable glycerine and water. i was also warned that using too much colour would brown my work, so that was another thing i needed to watch out for. class discussion and consultation from fellow students helped to confirm my findings, and i was finally able to animate using this medium.

i found that:  1) watercolour and oil paints are far too liquid and easily dull in colour with the application of water  2) i would rather avoid the smell of oil and spirits in my room 3) acrylic would dry too fast, so would be harder to move around and 4) gouache was a good midpoint between these paints as it can maintain both its viscosity and colour when wet.

with this in mind, i also drew inspiration from incredible paint-on-glass films like black soul by martine chartrand and the music video monotonous purgatory by saori shiroki for matryoshka.

here, i drew a rough storyboard that i wouldnt necessarily follow to the letter, but would serve as concepts for the progression of the paint as it morphs and moves from one image to another. i also noted down materials i would need for the days that followed.

as the theme of the project is about identity, i decided to focus on what part of my own identity i felt strongest about at the moment. at the same time, i had been listening to a lot of mitski, a japanese-american singer songwriter whose music frequently discusses themes of isolation, having to live up to white western cultural standards of beauty, and issues of self acceptance. as i find myself actively relating to all of those themes, i found that it was appropriate to use a section of her music as a first reference of expression, to express the turmoil i have every so often with being gay. in the studio, i would play the song “geyser” on repeat for hours while i painted, checking the strength of every frame against the strength of the emotions building up in the music.

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week 12 and 13. the first week back focused on perspective, while the latter focused on gesture drawings. i also had help from life drawing sources like croquis cafe (https://vimeo.com/croquiscafe) and https://line-of-action.com, which i will now start to use more often. as my perspective drawings need work, i will need to practice more of them in my free time.

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presentation storyboard for prewritten script “lost in the city”

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revised design notes for my 1 minute film, along with expressions and referenced practice drawings. i feel that having a simplified character design will enable me to create frames faster, and that it will be easier to stylise the rest of the character lineup.

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scans from weeks 9 and 10, week 9 focusing on perspective and 10 for shape. week 11 was an exercise in drawing the entire class over a zoom meeting. i feel that my confidence in linemaking has increased, however it is difficult for me to measure proportions correctly and transfer them to my page. more perspective practice could also be useful for me, as i struggle with maintaining proportion in a perspective view especially.

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working storyboard for “into the night”, a 55 word short story by dick skeen.

this was not an easy story to illustrate as it didn't necessarily contain a strict narrative, it was rather a list of words that needed to be pieced together by pure connotation. the first time i looked at the story, i simply thought, "cheating spouse". but then i realised that some words were more nuanced, and others threw me off the story i was creating in my head because they would say locations like "bathroom" or "kitchen" that took me away from the scene of the two lovers in an affair.

however, i took the artistic liberty of transitioning from that scene, to the point of view of the murderous husband in order to portray this sudden change of tone. to show this, the camera would pan from the bedroom to an imaginary wall connecting the apartment and the estranged couple's house. the house where, the husband, is in the bathroom staring at himself in the mirror angrily. he would leave the bedroom he and his wife once slept together in, and shut off the lighthe is then pictured taking a knife out of the kitchen drawer.

i found, halfway through working on this draft, that i would eventually reach over 60 frames, and needed to picture the narrative less cleanly in a smaller notebook so that without restraint i could express how the scene could play out. many frames were taken out or combined because the moment was too slow or because they were unnecessary. i think that in future, it would be better for me to plan out characters and their roles first before diving straight into the narrative.

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working storyboard for pre-written script “lost in the city”