CPS: WEEK 9 Characters and Events

FULL VIDEO AVAILABLE AT

https://youtu.be/Gk73DB0gDl8

In response to this weeks theme of Character relative to Events and Place, I made a short animation depicting a character from a comic I wrote as a teenager, and the ways in which his environment affects his behaviour. Lawrence is an attention seeking character whose older brother recently moved out of home, leaving a gap in his life, hence the empty lower bunk in the bunk bed. Losing constant acess to his only true friend has disconnected Loz from his family, and as he's only distantly connected to the people at school he's looking to impress, he's in a loop of looking for attention, no matter how he can get it. His mum has to deal with his inattentiveness and obnoxiousness at school and at home. As his day begins and ends, he transitions from the narrow performative space of the internet to the wide performative space of school and back again, in a cycle which defines his life over time. 

By using detail dense backgrounds, I portrayed Lawrences living situation, poverty, eating habits and mental frustration through clutter. 

This work is similar to the "Mr Fear" music video animated by RUDO co. for the band SIAMES. The video uses comic book like boxes, opening and closing to tell its story, implying/emphasizing movement and significance through box size and box shape. I did something similar here. The way the boxes are shaped changes how the shots feel, making the character feel more compressed or more open. The two shots where Lawrence is socializing and seeking attention are those with the most white space, and those where he feels trapped have the least. 

The work fits into my practice as a further extension of my 2D animation style, using extremely minimal movement and frames to imply as much as I could. I'm usually a fairly slow animator, but the animations I completed in a day and I'm very proud of that.