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Leaven  2017 Acrylic paint on acetate Millie Fleming

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Setting up my exhibition! The film is now complete, and Matt is going to set up the film with a laptop hooked up to the smart board projector. Underneath the film is this big lightbox where I’m selecting which acetate paintings I want to display. I had to scrub the lightbox clean, but now it looks shiny and almost-new. The light will be on during the exhibition. 

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The editing process of my film. I have decided to title it Leaven, as the story of my film is about leavening being a symbol of sin. I first sequenced the photos in After Effects, cutting out frames that weren’t smooth transitions and adjusting the length of certain frames. I exported the sequence as an mp4 and then edited it in Premiere. I wanted to make the film feel more sinister, so I chose to put a red tint over the film about halfway through when the dough starts moving on its own. Red is a colour I’ve looked at a little, as it was used purposely in 2001 to represent HAL, and is a colour associated with anger, blood etc. 

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Setting up the copy stand and frame for the stop-motion photographs. I tried out some different settings and initially decided on ISO 100, s1/20 and f6.3, but later changed my mind, as the photos looked a bit dark. The final settings were ISO 200, s1/30 and f7.1.

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Exhibition set up is tough work. Paint speckles from a paint roller. God, I got pretty sweaty for a few days. 

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The painting continues! My hand is cramping, my brain is dying, I need to finish ASAP. I’m terrified that the film will look crap, but I just have to wait and see. 

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Inspired by the texture of Aldo Tambellini’s work, I put blobs of paint between sheets of acetate and squished the paint around. When I peeled the acetate apart, it gave the paint a veiny texture. I want to use this texture in my work, but it might be distracting in my film. I made a white version of this and will use it as the background of my film. 

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Thanks to a fellow student, I was able to look at 2 more artists who could perhaps reignite the passion I had for my project. Aldo Tambellini (top) scratched into film reels for several of his films, and the effect is cool and abstract. Norman McLaren, a veteran and pioneer of the animation industry, hand drew/painted his animations and even composed original music to sync with the movements. I absolutely love the abstract, minimalist style of McLaren’s work.

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I presented my seminar! Way too late in the game to be much use (in my opinion), but a good learning experience I suppose. I was pretty nervous but I persevered and ended up talking for quite a while, in depth, about my work. At the end of it I got some suggestions from other students on relevant artists, and advice on setting up my exhibition piece. 

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I’ve started painting frames! Yay! But, also, oh my god. I’m quite happy to sit and paint for hours, but it’s a bit overwhelming knowing I’ve got hundreds of frames to paint. Annoyingly, I have to paint a few coats of paint for each image because the acrylic paint isn’t opaque enough for my liking. I plan on putting my frames on a light box, so I don’t want them to look streaky. I also don’t want the pen to show up too much, if at all. aghhhhghghgh

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I’ve drawn almost 50 frames of my animation! This is just the section where the hands are kneading, so it will only fill a few seconds of footage. I don’t want to use up all the college’s supply of acetate, so I’ve ordered my own (about 300 sheets omg) and will continue drawing frames when it arrives. I’m going to start painting this section soon, because it will take a few days for the acetate to be delivered and I don’t want to waste time waiting to paint the frames until the end of production.

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So that I could accurately draw hands/kneading in my animation, I filmed my own hand moving in certain ways that look like kneading motions. I plan to just duplicate/flip the left hand image so that the right hand is also in the film, doing pretty much the same movements.

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Before embarking on my tremendous animation effort, I thought I’d do a few trials of paint on acetate. I’ve watched a lot of old films where animation was done all by hand and cel-based. I’m not familiar with digital animation, I don’t like claymation/stop-motion much at the moment because it’s really difficult (!), so I thought this would be a good animation form to try. I’ve made a flip book before, which is very similar to the process of cel-based animation. I think the trial was successful, so I have the confidence to make my film entirely using this process.

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I used plasticine to make the model of what I want the evil dough to look like. I did this so I can see how light falls on the 3D form. I then made an illustration of the kind of vibe I want my film to have. I want the face to look evil. I used brush pens and fine liners to achieve this image.

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I decided the second idea from my last post is the story I want to tell. So, I made a developed, better looking storyboard to show how the film will progress. I also wrote out the steps in the story. 

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A couple different storyboard ideas for my film. The first idea is that we will see someone kneading dough and then that person will put the dough in the oven, and what follows will be like my previous illustration of the loaf in the oven. I don’t like this storyboard illustration and the actual idea isn’t my favourite either. The second idea is to show dough that has been left out to prove/rise and bubbles up and grows in a grotesque way. A face would slowly appear, first seeming like Jesus, but morphing into the devil. I want to make an animation that demonstrates the idea of yeast = sin. This second idea is my favourite.

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Another bread idea I had, sans background. I feel like this isn’t creepy/dark enough. I realise I’m leaning towards a horror film vibe, and this is too pastel-y and light. It literally looks like angel cake or some other lightweight food. I am also having difficulty drawing the proportions well, so I’m going to sculpt a figure that I can use as reference for future illustrations and my film.