Animated Narratives Week 1

By Harry Hughes

A living wax figure tries to maintain its shape and identity during a city heatwave.

Script Treatment

The wax figure walks through the hot city, melting more and more with each step. After succesfully reaching the end of the line without melting, he stops and has someone light the wick on top of his head so they can light a cigarette. He melts.

This work examines the intensity and arbitrary coldness and isolation of life in big, modern cities. By using collage animation and building a soundscape I was able to create a world that feels dream-like but also authentic and understandable. The colors I used evoke the cheerless nature of this scene. Eventually I would like to build a 3D wax figure that moves (and melts) but I’m only just starting to learn 3D character building.

This work is similar to a lot of figurative animation that portray the real world in an abstract way in order to tell the bizarre sorts of “what if?” stories- stories that are usually only possible through animation. I’m interested in almost any irreverent representation of our world, from Bojack Horseman to Jordan Wolfson.

For this premise I started by wanting to build the street background and the soundscape ----- trying to build the world. I layered a few car and city noises and a "footstep" sound effect I made with a water bottle, as well as a sound piece I made in Character, Place and Simuation. Next I'd like to record the wax figure's voice- sighing and possibly screaming in pain as he melts. Then in Photoshop I built a wide frame on which to collage shots of skyscrapers and some dark colors. On completing this I exported the image into Premiere and controlled its movement to create the background through which the wax figure would move. I also made a few simple storyboards.