TV series Project Work

“Dear Matilda”

Amidst the chaos of the Blitz, six-year-old Matilda is evacuated to the English countryside, finding herself in the care of Ernest, an elderly man, and Dorothy, his daughter-in-law. Within the uncertainty, a glimmer of magic emerges as letters from Matilda’s lost doll, Polly, start arriving, painting vivid tales of adventure that unexpectedly brighten everyone’s wartime experience.

I was in charade of early character design and the concept art of the colourful doll’s world. I have always enjoyed character designing, as their images alone can tell a story. Through looking through archive photos and visiting the Portrait Gallery I tried to keep the characters and their environment true to the time period of WW2.

Starting from the protagonist, Matilda and Polly doll. I used contrasting colours to show the personality difference and character traits. Matilda is young, traumatised, emotional and innocent. According to the script writers’ instructions, she wears a pink bow and has brown hair to avoid stereotypes. In the beginning, i designed a range of hair styles inspired by photos of children in the 1940s. For the first stage I usually create various styles for flexible visuals. I also aimed at a casual colours in consideration of the war environment. After a range of developments, the final design had been handed to Diana to complete. ( In the first photo Matilda is labelled as Polly, which was the original name, but Polly sounds more like a doll, so we swapped the names around later on)

Polly is an adventurous, confident, mature doll who writes to Matilda about her journeys after being lost. Each letter teaches her a important lesson in life such as being patient, be empathetic, stay hopeful and eventually how to move on. In contrast with the softness of Matilda’s shapes, Polly’s character design had been crazy since the beginning. The doll quality gives animation freedom to experiment with style changes and character development. I exaggerated the ribbon on Polly to create the dolly like uncanny and bold outlines. After choosing the third one, I also tried out other colour combinations and facial expressions. As character with a lot of depth, her colour pallet represents dreams, comfort and fairy tale providing a mental escape for Matilda.

And lastly, Dorothy and Earnest. They are supposed to represent women and elderly contributions in the war. Dorothy being strong after suffering the loss of her husband Charlie to war. Earnest, the real writers of Polly’s letters, father of Charlie.

Dear Matilda is also a historical fiction aimed to inspire children with stories about courage, dealing with loss and growth. During the development some plot lines I or the other wrote have not been used, such as Polly meets the Queen and podcast with her to children (Queen Elizabeth II volunteered to train in WW2 and had podcasts telling stories to children); Polly meeting dotty the cat who bought her back to Matilda; Polly speaks with poetry rats in the Metro that began to live like humans since they are living together; Polly visiting the hospital; and Polly learning how rations stations work by going to the rat ration station.

The greatest change of all is the ending. Originally Polly was going to walk away with her last letter after finding Matilda living happily and ready to move on. This was changed to Polly sending a goodbye letter explaining to Matilda after feeling compelled to comfort more children in need of help. The montage had a lot of reference from the episodes through out. I believe that the message of this TV show, untimely is to advocate the brutality of war, and urge for peace. I added the image of the return of Charlie (Dorothy’s husband passed away during the war) for this reason.

As a writer, we can never fully capture or fully to represent the brutality of human suffering. But we must try and never stop to advocate for what is right. As a story, we can worn the others learning from the mistakes made in history, trying to avoid the next one. But as a fairy tale, I hope to at least pass on our condolences for the lost ones and give them a gentle ending, of their returns.

it is the year 3023, in a star cloud far away from shelter, we found weird remains of what seems to be another life form. 

The planet behold vairous enviromental conditions, disturbing gravity and tight nit eco structure. 

Through a long time of interacting with them and studying their plannet and life forms, we concluded that they are the remains of what used to be called ‘Humans’. Their planet was once demolisehed by a big explosion. 

This is a documentary recording their current life forms for our study.

Storyboard

Animation + music test

Objectives of this project

What is the point of art?

To express? To reconcile? To objectify? To symbolise? To ask questions. To be useless. To be useless. It assumes that there are purpose.

What is the point of our human existence?

I don’t think there is any one that can give a satisfying answer to this question, yet we all think about it.

In this question regarding humanity, it is hard to even define the word ‘point’. On what scale or subject or in what context of what form and type of existence as a whole or just one? So instead of defining a meaning for life, I went to the opposite of existence – Death, and eliminated all humans from this world of animation.

What is death? Durning the proposal, I claimed that this animation is a joke which occurred accidentally during a bad day. But deep down believe in no accidents, only premeditated phenomenon realised through collaborated factors appearing in a predetermined time that can only appear to be ’accidental’ in-order for a human brain to cope. This idea is inspired by the Buddhist concept of Karma which sounds abstractly comparable for the current scientific model of the fourth dimension, where time is only a imagination of human perception, and all things overlaps at the same time. This makes past, present, and future happen at the same time.

And these thinking makes death even harder to define. I used to see death as a final escape, where even conscious would be eliminated (or maybe periodically exist then forgotten as we enter a new cycle of life because I believe in reincarnation). The idea of ending brought me great courage when expressed in jokes, as it proved me an ultimate escape, that when all hopes were lost, death is the only certainty and is permanent. Though death, it provides an anchor though the uncertainty of life that embraces absurdity into the mundane because no matter what happened, it won’t matter for too long.

The vastness of the universe and the contrast between seemingly opposite concepts appeared like coins in my brain. Which is when I thought maybe everything is not too different from each other. In tarot cards, Death means the end of a cycle, but cycles never end. In other words, death means rebirth. If the idea of a contrasting ‘other’ does not exist, ’I’ would not exist either. If there is no death, then life would be trivial. If there is no pain, happiness would be less appreciated. If everyone is the same, there would be no self, or others; and certain no love of individual, then hate would also no longer exist. These ideas not only complement each-other, they are extremely different and very much alike, coexisting and codependent on the juxtaposed, like two sides of a coin. Just like how the value of infinity infinitely approaches to zero and is larger than any sum; a black hole which constant engulfs will eventually become a white whole that constantly ejects, simplicity is the highest complicity, and love is similar to hate.

All of the above could only make sense in this particular universe, under this social construction and observed by humans. What if we were not?

What if we were born in another planet? another universe? another dimension? There are lots of movies and literatures exploring imaginary miraculous creatures and foreign planets, but all exploring from a human perspective. The imagination never goes beyond our pre-existed circumstances. Concepts like hot and cold, deserts and civilisations, no matter how foreign it may seem at the beginning, it all goes back to a man’s test of morality and love. Is there possibly a way man can go without love or boundaries of our current society? What if a man loses their memory and wakes up in a completely (and I mean completely) foreign land, where the creatures are helium based, not carbon based creatures, they could consume radiations or something more absurd, undiscovered, beyond imagination, above our dimension. The concept of time does not exist, instead of linear, it’s like a solid, everything happens at the same time. And the creatures are not like any earthily imagined creatures (we are only making hybrids of existing things) but indescribable. This person would likely to die form information overload but say if they did survive and was raised like one of their own planet creatures.

That would have been a world completely free of human engagement. There would be a different system of language and emotions, a brand new ego system. If our eco system functions through regeneration for new life, then that one maybe aiming for permanent existence and evolution. Hormones would not exist, there for emotions will be different. There may be a new way of connection with civilisations or they may be solitary creatures or just concepts, not to survive but to prioritise an ideology before life. What would it be like to live without emotions and society? If imagination can only be created based on the things that have seen before, what would the compelely unimaginable look like?

Like a 2D character accidentally trampled across 3D world. They would not be able to fully engage in anything. And I feel unfortunate that I cannot imagine beyond my own boundaries either. I hope one day I would have enough experience where I have tried every possibility in life and figured out my ego more clearly. I hope by then I can express with determination and clear expression in artworks.

What would the world look like if at any point in history things went differently? What would Earth look like free of human influences? What would the Earth become? How would we die? What if I was an alien that lost all the memory and saw the future of already destroyed Earth? What would my perspective be without any emotions or context?

Poetry

What would the language look like without human? And I am aware that everything I have typed and will type is already made of human perception because I have lived under this human system, trained and inherently posses human limitations.

Later in the process, after I have attempted writing poetry I gave up. Not only it makes the animation even more abstract than it already has, it lacks focus. Of course it’s my problem. Thanks to Koji, graduate student of MA Documentry, he wrote a story based on my animation idea which inspired me to produce the current script.

Script

This, is year 6721. Peaking through the cracks of time, I record the current condition of our ancient home. With a series of mutations, our planet is no longer suitable for us to live. Occupied by unstable environments and predators. here， are the ones that will always starve, unable to fullfill themselves. Here are the ones that will always disappoint, nothing can satisfy. Here are the once’s that will always lie, even to themselves. Here are the once’s that will remain in silence, for the near sight or sound of others brings them immense pain. But it was destroyed by the hands of us. And the worst punishment of all. Our destruction of the planet have also destroyed death. Immortality is our punishment.

I also made a new series of characters for the further developed civilisation.

These characters are inspired by the movie ‘The Arrival’ in which their characters have a structure that can be interpreted directly through imagery and the composition of the paragraph. It is a straight forward language that even the smallest tweaks can result to a new meaning. Early human civilisations imagery is more prominent in communication , such as orical bone scripts and Miao ethnic groups in China. Stories were told through totems. These paintings not only hold information, but also carries the emotion of the tribe, passed through the artist’s hand, perceived by our eyes, having an immediate emotion recognition.

As the creatures are creatures inspired by human emotions, the scripts should also be full of emotions. These characters are also created based on strong feelings such as resentment, destroy, sorrow and greed.

In the final version of the storyboard, I was influenced by conversation with a knowledgeable friend. He suggested that as we succumb into our wishes we settle for the illusion, and maybe instead of killing the source of the desire (the ‘God’) , why not jump into its mouth. Because the mouth had always been a symbol of ‘a hero’s passway to death and rebirth’.

In the origional idea, I used the falling of a flower to lead into the view of the protagonist.

Flowers are fragile, and representing innocence. But the real story has not much to do with flowers.

Prove of concept

sorry, my files are too big, some won’t show previews

Music

My inspiration came form Chinese festival music ‘Hai dai qiang’ which is a singing technique in Yunnan allowing the singer to sing high note that can last more than half a minuet. I used erhu to replace singing, and made drum beats completely randomly. I was also fascinated by the 2017 animation ‘Shi Tu’. The Erhu in the ending, as the mood descend into overwhelming sadness, the rapid shift of notes, covering from almost screeching noises to low growls represents immense sorrow really inspired me to experiment with a song without a strong melody and sharp notes.

It was my first attempt to make music, first using FL studio make me overly perfectionist, I added too many tracks and tunes before I changed into Garage band on the ipad, which is more simplified. 

The main goal of the music is to portray an emotion. The first part of the animation is more of a performance, leading the audience and set the scene. It has only drums to set the pace and Pipa – A traditional Chinese instrument, I often associate with the fluid movement of dancing. The second scene, which is the festival. has a repeated melody which is interrupted by the burst of the illusion. 

Statement of Intent

The story of this project is based on a dream of my friend and me. Two years ago, my friend told me a dream of a festival in an old-fashioned village worshipping a monster living on a mountain in the middle of a black lake. A few months later, I dreamed of an escape from a tribe haunted by their past by killing a man. We fused the two visions together and decided to make a comic. Two years later, the comic is nowhere to be seen, but my interpretation of the dream grew wicked and twisted. In making logic of the dream for a clear storyline, I was dissatisfied with how the dream lost its mysterious fascination as it became more logical and apparent. I figured that the reason why this dream impressed me so much was due to the unconnected, jumpy events that contained complicated emotions.

In this dream:’ a girl mysteriously woke up in a village in the middle of a festival to worship a mountain god. When she regained control of her body, she was on a boat towards a temple on a mountain in the middle of a lake. She knew the mountain was evil, and in her attempt at resistance, she learned that everyone was dead and trapped in time due to their obsession with their mountain god. The girl eventually escaped by killing a man who claimed to be a collective representation of the villager’s past associations with the world.’ Luciam Fruid believed in dreams as ‘the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind’. With metaphors disguised in dreams visions, per his ‘Interpretations Of Dreams’, my subconscious reflects fear of the unknown, escapism and sexual desire. Unlike Fruid, I don’t try to make sense of the dreams. I simply appreciate the visual chaos and translate them into reality. 

Inspired by a Disney short film collaborated with Dali ‘Destino’ and ‘A Mind Sang’ by Vier Nev, I want to focus on animation transition performed by experimental materials. Last week, I used cyanotype for the first time using pressed flowers, creating highly detailed printings of nature. This process reminds me of shadow puppetry in how it records silhouettes, which interested me in creating an animation using cyanotype and traditional Chinese shadow puppetry Pi Ying. I have used shadow puppets in several projects. This time I would like to elevate the detail and the methods of manipulating shadow. I can also add another dimension to the use of shadow – filming an interaction of my shadows with animation. Additionally, I want to attempt other traditional Chinese painting materials, such as heat-treating copper – (Shao Bo) Remixing traditional methods into 3D. I will forget about clean drawings and a clear storyline in this project,  I will also try to make tribal, drum based music and chanting that offsets or mismatch the mood attempting to challenge a and express raw, uncanny emotions. I hope to explore and illustrate a chaotic, unexpected world of insanity. 

Discussing the importance of authenticity of virtual idol ‘Belle’ in virtual reality.

Virtual reality is, by definition, a perfect world, wholly designed. In comparison, reality is an imperfect world that cannot be controlled. In most societies, humans made moral or physical standards that often reflect the fantastical imaginations one strives to achieve. These icons or role models became more developed in the entertainment industry and became idols. In the past decade, virtual idols emerged, accompanied by the growing virtual reality technology. They are computer-simulated 3D models rigged onto performers with a prescribed character design powered by an AI to entertain all users. These icons are beautiful, malleable, never aging and ‘perfect’ in the animated movie ‘Belle’ directed by Mamoru Hosoda. The film portrays the overcoming struggle of a teenage girl Suzu Naito facing her trauma by becoming a singer icon ‘Belle’ in the virtual reality world ‘U’. This essay will analyze this film and discuss the role of realism and authenticity in virtual reality.

One common factor between Virtual reality and Idols is that they are both designed and unauthentic. Idols, first used as a religious symbol of worship, have an element of blind belief. Virtual reality helps to ‘realize’ these interactions in a visual 3D space. In recent years, virtual icons such as dating apps such as Kyoto Date, bands such as – soul, to K-pop band Superkind where AI-powered virtual idols blend with human idols. The borderline between tangible illusion and reality is smudged—the popularity of these devices targets human emotional needs. Just like a virtual world, emotions are also intangible yet natural. Virtual reality in the movie employs stylistic animation to weaken realistic visuals, pushing the emotional connection between characters to the foreground. In Idols and the U, spiritual resonance rather than tangible interactions are more crucial to satisfy. Both mental and physical connections are natural and needed for humans to function and desire.

However, virtual reality can ‘reveal much that is normally invisible. Non-physical qualities can be made manifest.’ 

The tragic story of the protagonist exemplifies the attraction of the world of U in the movie. Due to the mental trauma of Suzu Naito’s mother giving up her life protecting a child in an accident led to Suzu’s introverted, evasive personality and loss of voice. In the U, Suzu erased her physical appearance and forged a new identity allowing detachment from past trauma, hence regaining her voice. Her singing skill is inherent to her physical existence, but this talent is exercised better in a new form. Suzu’s fame in the U was only achieved with her passion for music. Nevertheless, it is indeed the detachment from reality in building a fake personality that she can free her talents and mental.  

In the movie ‘Belle’, virtual reality technology is already commonly accessible to a mix of international audiences across all ages. The slogan foreshadowed at the film’s beginning: come and build a new identity in a world of technology that can reveal ‘one’s’ best-hidden potential’, ‘start a new life… change the world!’. U brings a highly positive impact using the internet’s intimate information transmission rate and the truthfulness of anonymous users. Although these events happened in an abstract virtual world, the emotional connection Belle created in the U is natural and authentic. The environment provided a safe space that enhanced connections free from societal influence, and the impact of the positive support can be transmitted into reality. Ultimately, these emotional experiences changed Suzu’s life and drove her to save a young boy’s life.

Stylistically,  the movie uses 3D animation, which helps to enhance the semi-realistic world visually, different from the traditional 2D animated environments. The character building of ‘U’ icons removes realistic physical appearances, which are replaced with abstract, bold, unique designs based on one’s internal emotions. 

In physical reality, ‘humans are often identified based on appearances, attires and other symbolic objects’ such as uniforms, expensive bags and rings. In real-life interactions, one can easily make or mislead prejudgements based on consensus. Furthermore, this physical symbolism also acts as a self-reminder to behave within the character of one’s habit. Whereas, in this world where the icon may not even be human, one’s face has been removed. It disturbs the apparent reactive pattern, allowing a sense of safety to behave more authentically to their nature. Most characters appear as opposites of their initial appearance: the ‘Justice league’ turns out to be aggressors lusting for heroic fame; the fierce Dragon, in reality, is a domestically abused young boy; a bossy lady has an icon of a baby. Icons in the U are reflective of their deepest desire or inner persona. Fake identity acts like a mask that temporarily shields them from the fear of real-life consequences, increasing the truthfulness of their action. 

Suzu also benefited from anonymity – she gained confidence by being altered into the face of someone she admired. Belle’s appearance helped Suzu detach from her mental trauma, allowing her to regain her voice which is crucial to her fame. Her dependency on a facade coupled with the motif of contrasting character behaviors intensifies the underlying conflict between contrast appearance versus behavior; although primarily positive in the film, it pushes forward many ontological problems. How ‘real’ can reality satisfy the audience? Why do people so desperately want to remove Belle’s mask, approaching the ‘authentic’ her but not satisfied by her singing but wanting to see behind the mask? 

This discussion is brought forward to the audience by repetitively raising the question of ‘who is she?’. Humans have an inner conflict of wanting to achieve an ideal version of themselves but are also aware that perfection cannot be achieved. Breaking a perfect appearance to reveal imperfections is a gesture of sincerity that has always attracted the audience. However, Suzu can behave more freely and remains sincere behind the mask – Belle. However, a genuine connection is made by abandoning the mask. This reflects the instinctive desire of humans to pursue ‘truth’, even in a fake reality. 

Dramatic tension is often built from conflicts between truth and false, ‘the acceptance or the rejection of the new state conditions, the agreed pretense of performer and spectator.’ It was foreseeable that the film’s theatrical need was “a mask is made to be removed.” 

Like character design, a dimensional character must have layers of thoughts and imperfections that overcome its apparent logic. When characters become completely logical or satisfactory for all societal morals, their predictability makes them ‘unreal’. This is a growing phenomenon caused by rapid mass communication. With anonymity, and the growing trend of a quickly good internet atmosphere, people yearn for a solid answer or rapid change of result when facing a problem. Therefore when Suzu designed her desired ‘perfect’ face, her appearance was bound to be judged by destructive forces. But is it important to always see behind the appearance to reach the unfortunate truth? 

In real life, extensive interventions of the fandom are a common culture in the Eastern idol industry. According to ‘The (Re)production Of Kpop – Idols’, idols are ‘strategically produced commodities” that ‘establish and sustain the iconic quality that allows for him or her to exist as an object of worship’. Ripping off the perfect face, abandoning the god-like filter and finding ornery qualities in idols is an effective way for fans to relate with idols. Like the idols, Belle’s popularity and overwhelming talent make the fans want to know and connect beyond her works. it is well known in Japanese idol culture that ‘acquiring knowledge gives fans immense pleasure because they feel they are getting closer to their idols.’ Despite Belle’s undoubtedly influence and talent, she is intangible. With her fans, she initiates every interaction as she only exists in the virtual world. Behind the mask, she was unable to sing in front of people. She presents confidence but hides her sufferings and struggles in real life, which differs from her massive success of popularity and glorified appearance. As an audience with an omnipresent view, we see both sides. We empathize and engage with Suzu, entranced by her deep divide and unpredictability. Her ordinary life and imperfections are relatable, therefore, seem more ‘authentic’. But in the end, we are undoubtedly exploring the above ethical boundaries. We should not let our curious desires invade the daily life of anyone. One should logically regulate oneself to respect others’ boundaries.

On the contrary, the investigation into the identity of the Dragon tells of the importance of researching beyond appearance. The Dragon is known for his winning streaks in the arena; His fierce reputation and destructive style of fighting caused dissatisfaction, which can be seen in the fearful attitudes people display when he interrupts Belle’s concert when people call him a ‘monster’. After many pursuits, Belle finally builds a connection with him. From the bruises on his back, she connects the identity of the Dragon, a domestically abused boy in real life. Of course, it is an extreme case for a justified condition for Belle to interfere due to strict child protection law in Japan. However, this scenario urges deeper emotional connection and care beyond a symbolic person. The underlined factor is that one must refrain from the one-sided power difference in their interaction. This is because when only one person dominates the initiation of interaction, they naturally become the more powerful party in a relationship. It is unique in the movie that Belle and the Dragon’s fame are equal, making it easier to exchange conversations. This lowers Dragon’s boundary towards her, making it easier for Belle’s investigation.   

Throughout the film, the Dragon latches out all his build-up anger, which is a truthful response to his hatred towards his real-life situation. Opposite to Belle, he displays a much more extreme inner personality that has a more negative impact than Belle’s encouraging spirit. Deep down, they are both screaming for help. The beauty of the film is that when the two characters meet each other, their shared experience of losing their mother is communicated through their timid body language and evasive eye contact, which leads to spiritual resonance. Truth does not always need to be told but felt. They are not entirely truthful, guarding their secrets, but they greatly care for each other at the moment they share. In an interview with Alin, a virtual idol in A-soul, she remarks that ‘although we may not be tangible beings, the emotional connection in our interactions is real’.

Overall, truth is crucial, whether in real life or virtual reality. Based on the above analysis, the difference between our judgment towards the matter that differentiates from unethical fandom and an understanding audience the perspective and approach towards a relationship resulting in information difference. Nevertheless, behind every appearance or action, there is a motive. Both the Dragon and Belle want to express their emotions, to love and be accepted. They may express it differently, resulting in various outcomes, but once we see through their image and reach their core, we begin to understand their desire and values. This is the true essence or the authenticity of a character. To make dynamic characters, we align them closely to human behavioral patterns. Most of the time, people are only sometimes authentic or truthful in real life. We all have a mask to wear while hoping to be treated sincerely. Virtual reality is a great space generated by breathtaking images, our looks and approaches may differ, but we cannot deceive our actions. Appearance is the most apparent difference, but that does not mean there is no authenticity in an unrealistic world. Just like Somerset Maugham wrote in Moon and The Sixpence: ‘I did not know how much pose there is in the sincere, how much baseness in the noble, nor how much goodness in the reprobate’. As emotional and contradicting creatures, nothing can be judged black or white. Authenticity can be altered based on one’s perspective. When Suzu finally faced her insecurities and found peace with herself, she no longer needed a virtual image. Belle represented her struggle, but it was all herself from the beginning. We seek truth not to please the audience but to remain truthful to ourselves.  

References

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This is a project collaborating with the Guildhall school of Music and Drama. We aim to raise awareness of micro aggressive behaviors within school communities. Hoping to evoke more empathy among student and teachers to build a harmonious environment.

I am making this animation with April (YiFei) Long from our course, and Eleanor from Guildhall School of Drama focusing on identifying micro – aggression and micro – invalidation.

Micro- aggression is a constant type of bully where the majority of a community or a party of authority towards a less common party. This not only happen to someone who is new to a environment or culture, but any one who happened to be categorized as ‘different’. This can be a subconscious action to establish power. By irrationally generalizing people into different status based on appearance, behavior or culture, creates smaller groups to fit into. The aggressor demeans other’s value to raise their own group’s status.

Micro – aggressors often conduct subtle but “hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups”. These conscious or subconscious actions may not have immediate impact, but as time accumulates, the targeted party develops acceptance to these paper-cut- like commentaries, hence allows their boundaries to be pushed back further. Eventually submits to the more powerful parties’s ideologies. Through this discrete transformation, the targeted party often develop self- doubt towards their identity under fear to fit in with the major community hence giving into per pressure. In the long term consequence of the unfriendly behavior influences the targeted party to internally disapprove of themselves and often their background that can lead to mental distress.

I was an example of Micro- Aggression when I first joined a secondary school in the UK. Due to language barrier, my culture identity and behaviors were challenged based on my Chinese ethnicity. The scary thing was that I failed to identify form a lack of experience, that I was being mistreated. This imposed hatred caused a lot of internal aggression. As a result I tried to deny my culture, forgetting about my own country and question my place.

Looking back at my own experience, giving into pressure and fitting into the environment did not assisted with finding a sense of belonging. In my attempts of blending with my surrounding culture, I had a internal voice that could not be ignored, constantly unease by the surroundings. In this swirl of asserting power, it was important to recognize your differences verses other’s intentions. This will help set one’s own ground, and see clearer of all sorts of mischievous ignorance and have the courage to withstand mistreatment, remaining one’s true self.

Therefore, I want to make an animation film hoping to highlight some forms of micro-aggression and the process of transition of self indulgence caused by it. We aim to convey the seriousness of this action visually and in narrative through inventive use of mix media animation. Our initial story line including story board is as follows: ‘A person joins Guildhall school of Music and Drama and its ego was demolished by the Micro-aggressive environment. ’ We are not keen on including a solution or a happy ending to the story due to time restrictions. We believe that some times a tragedy can make more emotional impact to urge the audience to emphasis.

Character Design

Although this project is stress to increase awareness and prevent racial discrimination among the staffs in Guildhall School of Music and Drama, we see micro aggression not only in ethnic disparities, but also cultural and personally. As an attempt to raise equality in a general concern, we decided to make an all inclusive character. This led to character design of based on a Paper person.

The personification of a paper man not only allows us to experiment with multi media animation and cross dimensional imagery, also explores with metaphors such as ‘fragility’, ‘malleable‘ and ‘paper-cuts’ in relation to its material qualities.

The experience of micro – aggression is like receiving paper – cuts. It doesn’t seem like a lot at first, but it hurts constantly. Every time someone looks at me in a certain way, says a certain phrase. They may not mean it, but it adds a new paper cut on top of the ones from yesterday, and more from tomorrow. Our Paper figure will be done in stop motion, which adds more visual depth in creating contrast with 2D animated back ground.

Animation Planning

First of all, we wanted to incorporate a range of styles of animation as a representation of a diversified environment. Every character or settings will be drawn in a different style, each drawing style is unique, just like every individual student. Origionally, we wanted to use windows to show

We wanted to explore AI animation following the recent trend of AI animation on the internet. Interestingly there has been a growing controversy on the legitimacy of AI art works. As most AI art are created from ‘studies’ based on existing human art work around the internet, it copies but does not invent new, therefore can be unethical to publish for commercial use. Furthermore, general voices on the internet indicate concerns for technology to replace human artists. Especially in the current time AI is still a developing technology, which is hard to imagine its full potential interacting with human society on a large scale. This concern soon elevated by the case of artist who won a drawing contest using an AI artwork. The comments towards this case convey hostilities towards Artificial intelligence.

Making of the animation

Music

Considering the experimental nature of the visuals, we wanted the music to be electronic and electronic too. After three drafts from Eleanor from GSMDwe finally settled on our final version. Originally we also wanted to add machanic voices whispering in various languages “what are you doing here?” “who invited you?”. The result was not very pleasing due to the limitations of google translate, but the sounds is already very complete, to avoid overcrowding the animation, it was done in text in the final version.

Critical Apperasial

Reflecting on the creative journey of this project has taught me the importance of a clear message through many stages of development and client feedback. I used to create highly conceptual works, thinking that abstract art offers freedom of interpretation. Animation for clients is something different from my usual style. Considering the appropriation of text, inclusiveness rather than a personal expression of emotions is a crucial skill for future works. Our initial approach was too personal and broad. We had too much to express, which made it chaotic and unoriented, eventually diluting our message. Through increasing understanding and analyzing the client’s requirements, we concise our imaginaries, clarified the visuals and even used subtitles. In the end, we formed a clear synopsis that pushed us to base the concept on reality. Although it was painful to change our ideas, we learned to corporate with client needs and our creative visions.
Another challenge we faced was the compatibility of the music. Our violent visuals clashed with the musician’s classical style. I first envisioned the music as noisy and chaotic. However, the musician cleverly integrated classical instruments with our flashy visuals, balancing saturated images with slow, quiet tunes bringing unexpecting layers of contrast.
Aside from successes, we also had unfulfilled ambitions such as background creation and more complicated scenes walking on water. We could experiment with other materials with proper equipment and lighting. This ties in with my weakness in time management and forehead planning. I often need more consideration of planning for many filming processes and often fail to prepare everything or think of too complicated scenes. This improved as I became more familiar with Aftereffects when I assembled broken footage into layers and had a chronological progression story formed. I started making a blog sheet crossing out each stage and the shots needed.
Overall, these successful projects exercise the animation production processes and work with real clients. I learned to simplify my messages and work for more straightforward ones. The final product is advantageous, seeing harmony through all our contrasts.

a) The role fear plays within the narrative 

Pastoral: To Die in the Country(田園に死す, Den-en ni shisu), also known as Pastoral Hide and Seek, is a 1974 Japanese drama film directed by Shūji Terayama.

This biographical film is a conversation between ‘Older Me’ and fifteen years old ‘Me’.  In this film, Terayama manipulates fear through uncanny visuals in his playful, colourful style. He incorporates metaphors and traditional Japanese poems and theatre to disguise grotesque stories and criticise post war Japanese society. Eventually grieving the broken, painful childhood memories comes to peace with the death of his innocence.

The main horror In Pastoral, is time. As humans, we all fear death brought by the passing of time. In pastoral, the memories of lost ones and traumatic experiences become glamorised and vivid. But under the colourful impressions, these traumatising memories haunt our present day.  In the film, the concept of past trauma is naturally associated with ‘clocks’. Broken, buried and enlarged clocks scatter throughout the film, connecting each stage of character growth, reminding the terrifying changes time brings. 

The first clock appeared as broken, representing our protagonist Shin-Chan’s root of his fear: his controlling mother.

Visually, the mother is an unsettling character. Her face is painted white, with a masculine voice but a female body just like Japanese Noh plays. It creates strong contrast in her darkly lit house. Compositionally, she is trapped in frames created between walls inside the house, miniking traditional Japanese theatre stages. The magic of literature appears in the defarmiliarsation of the ordinary, the defacing of the mother dramatise then symbolises her. They begin to represent a social phenomenon. The mother’s uncanney Noh makeup and white Kimono portrays her like a ghost, remaining in the past, and haunting Shin.

Despite the loud noise and fause time, Shin’s mother refused to fix the clock, she believed that it brought bad fortune to move it off the wall and later tied it against the wall. The idea of ‘bad luck’ paints the mother’s outdated Japanese spiritual beliefs signifying rejection of modern society. Bonding the clock also is a gesture of her rejection of change and excessive control of time in this household, an attempt to bond the time from moving on, an attempt to keep all nostalgic memories in the same place, a rejection of change which also bonds her son to ‘stay forever as [her] innocent boy!’. 

She refuses to move on from the past like the broken clock that tells the wrong time. This ties in with the Japanese literature’s post war reflective spirit. After suffering from heavy loss in the second world war, there was a growing doubt of the past nationalism, hornor, while coping with the broken society. As time passes, the suffering in the society continues, recognising and coping with the past. The mental stigma that bonds people in regret and torments the present is the true, undefetable terror. The depressing atmosphere that looms in this house torments Shin and the viewer.

In the next chapter of the film, the dramatic visual language and uncanniness is further enforced by introducing conflict between imagination and reality. In those romanticised childhood memories, we saw a colourful ‘freak’ circus. In this illusion, the motif of the watch marks Shin’s awakening for freedom. The imagery of a circus, is an ‘embodiment of unique ontological isolation, epitomising a temporality out of social life’. As a blow-up lady told him that ‘everyone has a clock here’. This shocked Shin ‘but if everyone has time, wouldn’t they fight for who has the real time?’ hence awakened his awakening individual consciousness. He realised that he had been living under an illusion mother believed, and that time, or himself, has its own ways of existence, without having to be ‘contained in a grand clock’. 

Visually, the circus is presented by bright, saturated colours, with fuzzy, dreamy filters diffrienciating from the mono coloured reality of Shin. The characters have more of a symbolic role acting beyond the characters of the movie, holding a conversation with the suidence too. They give an omnipresent, unrealistic aura, foreshadowing the chaos hidden under their colourful appearance. ‘Everyone has their own clock’ and ‘she is nothing without a blow up suit’ reflecting aspects of individuality, societal pressure. The montage metaphorically portrays the director’s poignant views of the outside world. Furthermore the director combines these in his stylised montage narrative connecting fragmented memories. They demonstrate conflicting narratives, with playful colours but are often shot from a hidden or isometric angle. Whereas the time travelling scenes are constructed with more shadows and symmetrical medium shots, appearing serious and dominating.  Using the clock as transitions, Terayama connects Shin’s memory illusions mixed in reality, encouraging the viewers to find the ‘truth’ hidden in the colourful disguise of Illusions. Through the contrast of expectation and reality, Shin’s tragedy is enlarged. Because as hard as he tries, his struggle towards freedom is useless. 

The tension towards mother soon reached the climax, into action. ‘The only solution is if we kill our mother.’ Elder Shin-chan finally derived that conclusion. In this thrilling scene, the mother’s image finally changed. In elder Shin’s timeline, she is laughing at a TV in a modern apartment but still with the old clock, now fixed. Time begins to move forward, but the damage in Shin’s heart has already been done. As ‘But If my grandmother is killed, then my mother, even me, would not exist. Then who will?’ This discussion of the grandfather paradox not only amplifies his hatred towards this broken family, the twisted and extreme mentality of Shin. Horror is created through the death of his humanity and the suspense of the unknown result of the paradox. Furthermore, it also discusses the shared dream of humanity – time travelling. 

The movie is a bridge between the director inside and outside the film with their childhood. This technique effectively challenges then smudges the borderline between the artistic world and reality. Although scientifically impossible, the romanticised concept clearly states human’s shared desire of fixing the past. In the final meeting of Shin and elder Shin, they sit in front of a chess board. The visual imagery leads this concept to a new height of challenging reality. Shin reveals the reality that they never managed to escape from their mother, shattering the dreams of the movie. ‘I have also got a clock now.’ implying that he finally got some limited freedom. In the background, Terayama completely disorientates the timeline in the movie and uses both background actors and the dialogue to perform his final argument – ‘time is an illusion.’ 

Without any grotesque visuals, the film challenges the psychology of human existence. The clock is once more used in the background as it turns anti-clockwise, hinting towards time travelling and illusion. There is a man getting a haircut with every shift of camera focus he suddenly transforms into elder age, eventually death. Terayama uses symbolic characters once more, disturbes the timeline of all characters, further enforces the imagery of ‘life’ into the chessboard Shin is battling with himself. In the end, with all the struggle and unfortunate events, Shin only battles with himself. 

One can argue that his tragedy began with the awakening of Shin’s hope for freedom. Lu Xun once said that ‘the most painful thing is that there is no way out after being awakened from the dream… wake him up’. And the horor is the inability to fit into society after unmasking the brutal truth. In the film, there are clear distinctions between other villagers and Shin. Shin and mother are defaced in white makeup, whereas the other characters appear more vivid with clear character traits. The ‘old grannys’ wear a uniformed black cape and one eye, the clown like a soldier, and a woman wearing colourful clothes that never stops chatting. Through the set design, these characters are subscribed to a specific role in the village, and society. They are particles that run a micro society representing post war Japan. 

Shin is excluded from them. This implies that he does not belong to a cog of the society, infact, as everyone has accepted their roles and acting along with their duties as characters in the village, but he struggles to be something different. If he had continued to live as everyone else in the village he wouldn’t have suffered so much, yet if he did so, he wouldn’t have even got a watch. But as humans, the most horrific thing for Shin and us is waking up from a dream in which we realise that all our beliefs and efforts are futile. Here, the director cleverly suggests the powerlessness of the loss of dreams in reality through their dialogue: ‘you never ran away, in fact, in the future you are still living with mum’ This meeting and the ending reinforced the idea of futility once more, as Elder Shin walks towards mother, the tension heightens, yet in a sclient stare, they sat down and began to eat dinner, their struggle has come to peace.

The horror in this film is inflected mainly on psychological aspects. Throughout the film, Terayama incorporates detailed metaphors in the background all hinting towards the idea of ‘illusion’. Physically shown, there are the imagery of ghosts and uncanney supernatural events, bringing thriller and discomfort. Narratively, these are symbolic and metaphorical conversations discussing something beyond the characters in the movie, challenging human existence. Visually, the dazzling colours contrast with mono colours, binding illusions together with reality, full of sudden shifts, illogical endings. There are no jump scare or disgusting characters, but the uncanny composition, discreet whisper, reveals the darkness of humanity in delicate visual disguise. Terayama presents his views of society and let fear drive Shin’s struggle through his suffocating life, finally discovering the futileness of life, and disappointment in human nature. In the end, nothing is more scary than humans, ourselves.

Bibliography

Freud, S., Strachey, J., Tyson, A. and Richards, A. (1976). The interpretation of dreams / The present volume edited by Angela Richards. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

今市子. Ichiko Ima (2013). 百鬼夜行抄 : 4 / Hyakki yakōshō : 4. 朝日新聞出版, Tōkyō: Asahishinbunshuppan.

Tsutomu Ema (n.d.). 日本妖怪変化史 / Nihon yōkai hengeshi. 中央公論新社.

www.wenzhangba.com. (2022). 《死者田园祭》经典影评10篇_观后感_文章吧. [online] Available at: https://www.wenzhangba.com/guanhougan/201803/244751.html [Accessed 28 Apr. 2022].

Carmeli, Yoram S. “Text, Traces, and the Reification of Totality: The Case of Popular Circus Literature.” New Literary History 25, no. 1 (1994): 175–205. https://doi.org/10.2307/469447.

Lewis, David. “The Paradoxes of Time Travel.” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 2, 1976, pp. 145–52, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20009616. Accessed 1 May 2022.

Viktor Shklovsky ‘Art as Technique’ 1917

Alfred Adler’s theories

Xun, L. (1923). What Happens After Nora Leaves Home?.

This is the diary of a young boy and his favorite pet.

This is the story of a girl in her brightest years, kidnapped and forced to be a wife.

This is a puppet show viewing the shadows of human desires

This is a true story.

modelling a VFX mask for a portrait video of my tragic hero on me.

Render

Reflection

in this project I experimented with creating a virtual effect mask form a video footage using Nuke. the mas was created according to the theme of a Tragic Hero.
A tragic hero suggest characters with heroic virtues with an unfortunate fate, usually in a play to reflect upon human nature. My idea for this tragic hero character is set in the 17th century during Witch trails. She was a doctor that was accused for witch craft and was sentenced to death through burning. In her character design, I experimented in using silhouette to exaggerate the outlines, later fill in the details with elements gathered form the mood board. As I didn’t want to create a grotesque character, bloody images was replaced with textures such as burning wood, lava rocks and flames. I experimented using silhouettes such as smoke and crosses to appeal to the religious social background at the time, creating a demonic character that rises through the ashes with spite. However in relation to the personality of the gentle, introverted character the final idea included elements of knights armors to suggest her loyal, quiet and strong character.
This idea was soon encountered with the limitations of Nuke Facebuilder. The tool only allows the texture to render according to the adjusted model of human face, which means that the texture cannot extend beyond the structure of the face model, sharp corners or my design that defaces the character cannot be fully rendered. Furthermore, my design was complicated as the armor has detailed sculptures on all sides and sharp edges. Luckily the shine of the armor still can render effectively, although the face model cannot show edges that are too sharp, it can still be stretched to a rough outline. Therefore I erased the extrusions on the armor texture and remolded the face to fit the armor. Later I used Roto painting to add shadow and highlights. I also used colour correction to make the fire more vivid and highlighting the shine.
this experience with Nuke was full of challenge. I was afraid of doing anything with a lack of knowledge of the software, and didn’t try to plan anything too crazy. Although the result was pleasing, next time I would like to experiment more with colour and face painting. Now reflecting back to the process, it seems that my approach was focused on the wrong field. It would have been more beneficial to focus on colours and anatomy/ make up instead of silhouette character design due to the primitive stage we are learning at this software. this could have been avoided by carefully reading and analyzing the project brief. Secondly, through later research, I fund that it is possible to import the face model into 3D software such as Maya to enhance; which means that I could build a armor according to design in Maya that can be imported and tracked.
Aside from the difficulties I faced, visually this project was quite successful. After alternating the face model and painted on top, the texture makes clear communication of the character trait. At the planning stage I was concerned that the makes might make the character appear evil or unpalatable, but the fact that the texturing was stuck to the face made the character less scary
this project has been quite challenging due to my lack of experience in 3D animation and Nuke software.