Animated Narratives - Week 1

For week 1 we looked at character location and interaction. The idea i put forward aimed to create a visual scenario showing the juxtaposition of environment to the character that inhabits it.

I drew an image of the scene showing the start of the piece, having a frog fight for survival on a rapidly moving train, battling against the wind and bumps and passing tree branches, before finally letting go and being swept away, accepting death.

However, the next shot opens close on the frog, before revealing the full scene. The frog landed in a swamp - creating a massive sense of contrast from the train, as well as a sense of belonging for the character. The theme throughout this that i tried to show was that its useless to fight to be something you are not.

Strangley enough, the inspiration for this scene came from a widely different source, Game of Thrones (HBO, 2016), the episeode Battle of The Basterds, There is a shot where Jon Snow, the protagonist, raises his head out amongst a sea of bodies, showing clear contrast between him ad his evironemtnt - living among the dead. That idea was what i decided to take and adapt to my little scene, using color instead of direction.

I experimented with a few ideas for blocking, having the frog be the centre of the frame, but this didn’t communicate the absurdity of the situation enough, and i settled for a wide shot of the train, having everything be blurred except the frog.