This one of my most favourite projects I've been set during semester 2! I taught myself a lot and had a chance to use my initiative and overcome any problems I came across.
So, this project was all about interpretation.
We were given a brief which had the general description of what our final outcome must have (length of video etc). It also included a transcript (a written or printed version of material originally presented in another medium) which we had no context for, so the aim of the project was to read the transcript carefully and create our own videos that (in the end) will depict what the transcript is describing.
The reason this was so challenging is because me and my pair didn't want to be in the video, so we took the animation route, we have never really made an animation as complex as this so it was difficult but it definitely paid off.
There are 964 frames all together and they are all hand drawn, which for me is why it was so rewarding to finish and watch the final video.
I used Adobe Sketch to draw each frame, I then saved each one to my camera roll before transferring them to a stop motion app on my mobile phone to bring the pictures to life. I'm sure there is an easier and less time consuming way to do this, but this was the way that worked for us.
After completing the animation, I put it onto my laptop and onto iMovie. This is where I added all of the sound effects, I used my voice, objects around me and sounds that I could find to really add dimension to the video.
The transcript:
INT. AN APARTMENT - DAY - LONG SHOT
Although we do not see the foreground window frame, we see a background scene of a street.
We can see the rear of a number of assorted houses and small apartment buildings whose fronts face the next street.
THE CAMERA PULLS BACK until a large sleeping profile of a man fills the screen. It is so large that we do not see any features.
From this vantage point you can see various interior scenes being played out across the street in an apartment block.
The scenes:
1/ A room with a large studio window. We are able to see inside this room. A man is standing near the window shaving,
To the right of him is a radio. The music selection coming from the radio stops, and the announcer is heard.
The man shaving quickly puts down his razor, hurries to the radio, and changes the station, moving past a number of commercial voices until he again finds some music.
Contented, he returns to his shaving.
2/ THE CAMERA NOW MOVES DOWN toward the left onto another low building. It MOVES IN A LITTLE to a living room window. Just inside the windowsill, a small fan is oscillating. The fan sits on the right side of the table, and to the left of it is a toaster.
Behind the toaster stands a young woman. Two pieces of toast pop up in the toaster while she prepares coffee.
3/ THE CAMERA MOVES OFF and around to some buildings at the side. As it skims this building, we see a hand emerge from one of the windows, and remove the cover from a birdcage, which is hanging from a hook on the wall outside. In the cage are two lovebirds -- arguing.
4/ THE CAMERA NOW PULLS BACK SWIFTLY and retreats through the open window back into the apartment. We now see more of the sleeping man. THE CAMERA GOES IN far enough to show a head and shoulders of him. Tall, lean, energetic, around thirty five, his face long and serious-looking at rest.
5/ THE CAMERA IS NOW FOCUSED on the window of the small building where we earlier saw the girl behind the toaster. Loud ballet music is pouring from her open window. The girl, begins the first graceful movement of a modern ballet interpretation.
She gracefully moves across the room to the rhythm of the music and dance, toward the refrigerator. With her feet still moving, she throws open the door, and then rhythmically moving back to the center of the room, gnaws on a chicken bone, occasionally waving it in the air as part of the choreography.
6/ Shooting back through the open window, we now see the man awaken as the phone rings. At this moment, his attention is drawn to something across the way. He looks up, out of the window, ignoring the phone ringing.
We hear a piano being played; across the street the street the man previously seen shaving composing at his piano, transcribing notes onto a score after he plays them, fighting the interference of the ballet music drifting from the nearby apartment. It finally becomes too much, he gives up and walks to the window to look down toward the dancer's apartment.
Our final outcome:
I would love to do more animation in future projects and really improve my techniques and abilities to create moving image pieces.
Being able to see everyone else's interpretation of the same transcript really opens your eyes to the way people think and produce work, it was quite fascinating to see that even though everyone had the same text to work from, the outcomes differentiated immensely!