Animated Narratives W10

By Eugenia Cynthiaputri

NOTE: check the attached file for the storyboard.

This storyboard explores the use of movement and transition to deliver a change of time, pace and scene. Using movement and transition I was able to stitch different scenes and storylines together coherently. This work uses graphic match transition, which helps with a smoother movement across the story, the present and past, as well as establishing a relationship between scenes. For example, using the fluttering cherry blossoms, the audience knows that such an environment is valuable to the character, which signifies the memory of the first meeting between the grandparents. In this case, I was able to reduce the explanatory speech that they met in spring, as it is already shown visually. Another example is the water bucket transition between the bully and the young grandma. By not showing the young grandpa getting splashed and moving into the young grandma, I was able to reduce shots and establish new information more effectively. The reduced shot is the water splashed onto the grandpa, which is not necessary as the story is focused on the encounter of the grandparents in the past, not the grandpa and the bully. Furthermore, there is no need to do more shots to introduce the young grandma. A similar effect is visible in the second water bucket to tea transition.

Similar use of transitions is present in Satoshi Kon’s works, especially shown and discussed in a form of a video: Satoshi Kon – Editing Space and Time (2014) by Every Frame a Painting. By exploring movement and transition techniques, I learned how they can create better cinematic and narrative experiences. I will use this knowledge to exercise a better storytelling process and delivery.