Storyboarding

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After I wrote out the script I advanced further onto the storyboard production. I had pictured it almost frame for frame in my head how I wanted it, so it was just a matter of getting it down as soon as I could before I started to lose any subtle nuances or niceties that I thought were important. I knew deep down that there were some changes to still be made but I thought that if I saw the ideas and concepts on paper it would help develop better, less complicated methods and techniques of visually illustrating the story. I also knew it would better help my tutors understand my concepts and decisions better if they could see them as well as read the description, which would ultimately result in better more detailed and definitive constructive feedback.

I did them a little more detailed than was perhaps necessary considering there was still room for revisions and alterations but nonetheless its visually straightforward and in line with the fundamental representations, compositions and approaches I had for the visual imagery, at least there won’t be any confusion or misinterpretations during feedback. Hopefully. Creating these storyboards now and including all the important and necessary details, will save me from having to later correct major mistakes, mistakes like broken story lines, continuity errors and playback timing issues. If I fail to identify issues early on it could dramatically decrease the quality of my production. Its better, to sift through the foundations now and eliminate any errors before I continue to build upon on it. A bit like a house, you must make sure that the groundwork preparation is done correctly before you progress.   

I just have to wait now for the constructive criticism and any ideas or alterations to the story or images. After I receive the feedback I can include the revisions and begin to establish and develop colour palettes for each of the storyboards. In the meantime I can commence on the storyboards that I know will assuredly be in the final revised and approved concept, while I concurrently finish any additional changes or developments to the story.

An Idea

When choosing from any of these abundance of important and sensitive subjects, you could argue that any topic could be interpreted as a random choice. Although something closer to home may seem more appropriate and more applicable to me as a person, issues like homelessness or mental health issues for instance, I’ve seen these topics chosen over the past couple years by other students in their final films, including some friends of mine, therefore I thought I would choose something else, an issue that I felt strongly about, one that I wanted to shed light on.

Concurrent to the time I was reading up on the subject, I chose the still very tragic and current affair of using children as soldiers in wars. A sensitive and rather complicated social and in some cases, political issue. Its a delicate, emotional, difficult, complex and perhaps a rather touchy subject, I’m very aware of the myriad of negative descriptions and synonyms to describe this delicate topic and I’ve second guessed using it as my theme but its something I want to do. I want to do it respectfully, no political connotations or implicitly forced opinions. I simply want to display the journey of these children, a silent, succinct, short film of a boy kidnapped from his family in a small rural village on the outskirts of a savanna. Focusing mainly on the boy, I want to portray a story of freedom and innocence, cut with an abrupt abduction into a life of captivity. I don’t want theatrics or an insensitive over-dramatisation of the issue. No close ups of over exaggerated, callous, amateurish animated facial expressions. I want to the visual communication to be in a documentarian style, a witness to the situation. I want the compositions, the light, the shadows, the environments, the props and the expressionism of the characters actions to convey the narrative, the emotion, the adversity and the tragedy of the theme. I don’t want to preach any message, make the audience feel any certain way, or deduce any particular message from the film, I want it, like most art, to be subjective, thought-provoking and just leaving the audience considering the themes and the actuality, reality and materiality of the subject matter.

Brainstorming

After decades of mainstream animations in the west geared primarily towards family entertainment, the medium is turning back towards more mature films. The tide is turning, I’ve noticed it and I’m certain that a lot of other people have to, animation has been pushing its limits and combatting the stigma of its medium. Parallel to its family friendly films, its juxtaposingly tackling more serious subjects and adult themes. This has been a prominent and increasing trend for the past decade or so, just perhaps more overlooked than its family friendly motif. That being said its more prominent and apparent than ever and I’m excited to be soon graduating in the time of a new more ambitious, mature and rather sophisticated time of animation that is using the opportunity and art form to shed light on certain unacknowledged topics that can help educate people. Its an era, or movement in art that I’m excited about and I want to be apart of, therefore I thought that I would ambitiously and rather bravely attempt to make an animation on a more serious topic. Establishing now, the direction that I attend to go in.

Abuse, equality, environmental protection, education, crime, racism, discrimination – there are a whole host of important topics being openly discussed and tackled today. But how are they best brought to light? Recently, animation has risen in popularity as a platform for getting one’s message across, but is it really a suitable platform for such topics?

Before the times of animated explainer videos, animations were predominantly viewed as cartoons for children and not devices for talking about important subject matters. So, can a “cartoon” effectively cover a serious topic and be taken seriously? No one wants to make light of subjects such as sexual abuse or world hunger – these are serious topics that deserve equally serious discussion. That said, video animation can prompt discussions in an effective manner.

Animation will always be identified, no doubt, with funny animals, but is winning respect as a medium for serious subjects. Consider the great success of “WALL-E,” which was greatly entertaining, yet a radical critique of the consumer society. Its a new era for the medium in my opinion and without rattling off every example of an animation that tackled a serious topic, I’ll give examples of the topics the medium can and has boldly and broadly covered.

• Breadwinner quite succinctly and courageously tackles the subject of an 11-year-old girl living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan in 2001. Cutting off her hair and dressing like a boy to support her family after her fathers wrongful arrest.
• Waltz of Bashir; The film is structured like a conventional documentary, with Folman visiting old army friends and piecing together what they saw and remember. It tackles being a witnessed the Sabra and Shatila massacre and argues that Israel itself is not guiltless in acts of passive genocide, an argument underlined by the disproportionate Israeli response to the provocations of Hamas.
• Persepolis is an animation based on Satrapi’s graphic novel about the life of an Iranian girl in pre and post-revolutionary Iran and then in Europe.
• Mary and Max recounts the pen-pal relationship between two very different people, tackling implicit allusion to afflicted mental disorders like depression and anxiety as well as shedding implicative light on loneliness, isolation and autism spectrum disorders like aspergers syndrome.

Sensitive issues, by their very nature, make people uncomfortable and are hard to talk about, let alone illustrate. So choosing to take on that task means you’re walking into a minefield of potentially misinterpreted symbolism and unintentionally offensive metaphors.

So how do you navigate this tricky terrain without tripping any land mines? I’ll continue this discussion in my next post.