Animated Narratives Week 10 - Movement

This week we explored narrative movement in animation, in relation to time and space, character movement, and navigation. In class, I came up with the following premise: He is stuck in one spot while his shadow is free to move around as it pleases

Developing this further, I created the following storyline:

• A girl lives a normal life - goes to work, hangs out with friends, etc.
• But on the days when the sun is too bright, her evil shadow emerges and controls her every move.
• The girl is always cheerful, helpful, and kind, but also somewhat meek and a pushover. But on the days when her Shadow is in control, she is more confident, outspoken, but also slightly mean spirited and cutting.
• She has to come to terms with the fact that she has both light and darkness within her.

This work is based on the concept of the “Shadow Self”, developed by psychologist Carl Jung. The Shadow self is supposed to be those aspects of our personality that we choose to reject and repress. The girl’s shadow here encourages to do all the things she deeply fears and hates about herself, all the negative emotions that she keeps buried inside. The shadow is her own internal battle.

I thought it would be interesting to do something different this week instead of my usual mind maps and storyboards, and so I made this short animation vignette.

This work is inspired by the animated short film Violet (2020) by Maurice Joyce, narrated by Aidan Gillen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1B1jeqetHs) which is a cautionary tale of a young girl who despises her reflection. On the night of her school ball, tired of the abuse, the girl’s reflection decides she’s not going to take it anymore and switches places with her, rendering her stuck while the reflection is free to move around. I thought it was interesting how the reflection had a mind of its own, which inspired me to give my character’s shadow a mind of its own.

Downloads:

Download File: week-10.mp4