Animated Narratives - Week 12

Story：At dusk, in a family's home in a certain village, the mother is busy cooking. A baby lies in bed in the room, looking out the window. Suddenly a man dressed as a soldier appears in front of the baby's eyes. The soldier looks at the baby with a happy smile and tries to touch it. Unexpectedly the baby cries out with a loud wail, which leaves the soldier at a loss for words. He tries to makes faces and hums songs, but to no avail. That makes the soldier a little bit crazy. When he keeps down he finds a toy at the bottom of the bed, completely out of reach when he tries to reach it. Just as he is at a loss, the loud cries finally bring the mother. The mother rushes into the room and holds the baby, humming a lullaby. The soldier seems to freeze as he listens to the song, and some battlefield memories flash out. The mother holding the baby walks through him and towards the living room. The soldier keeps silent for a long time and then says in a self-deprecating tone, "A fussing ghost... How interesting..." He slowly disappeared.

In the final week's post, I looked at all the premise from the last 12 weeks and thought about the corresponding comments, picked out one premise that I thought had the potential to be animated, modified it slightly and created the above story. We have explored many important factors during these 12 weeks of study, and this time I have tried to focus on light and shade, characters and music. The characters are three with widely varying identities. Interestingly, the soldier's identity is not explicitly revealed, and the baby sees things differently from the mother, but this gives the audience some room for reverie without detracting from the core of the story. It might be bizarre to tell who the soldier is through the dialogue and spoil the warmth and sadness that the ending brings. The mother humming a lullaby is a climax to the story. The song quiets the baby and evokes the soldier's memory. I wanted to accompany this gentle, peaceful lullaby with war scenes in this part of the imagery. It would contrast sharply with the music and match the brutal images to emphasise the relentlessness of war. In my opinion, this would not disrupt the pace of the narrative. It also provide some shock compared to using tense and loud explosive sound effects.

In further expanding the story, I referred to the short films Oma (https://vimeo.com/164076380) and A Gong Grandpa (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpyiPculHY&list=) LLnHisciPmAnlQHEKsluU4JA&index=3&t=180s). These two are animated shorts with similar themes, both using very subtle expressions to convey the pain and release of the heart when a loved one passes away and to emphasise the meaning and role of the characters. In Oma, the character's state of mind is portrayed as peaceful white and painfully struggling red. The music plays as the little girl tracks down her grandmother's departing figure, who eventually fades away in a quiet and tender ending. On the other hand, A Gong Grandpa emphasises the role of light and shadow and uses fast-paced, dreamlike music to accompany the somewhat distorted and shaky scenes when the character is about to explode emotionally. The character's inner turmoil and distress are well expressed, and the outburst ends with the character crying out for his grandfather.
In contrast to Oma, the realistic funeral ceremony takes up a large part of A Gong Grandpa, contrasting the bewilderment of the characters during the ceremony with the sadness of being alone, and ending with a more witty sense of humour, which lightens the depressing atmosphere and makes the rhythm of the narrative ebbs and flows. Oma emphasises the imagination of the inner world, maintaining a light, dreamy and sad emotion throughout and a smoother rhythm. I tried to learn from the strengths of both and added some extra fantasy of my own to make the theme of death and parting a little warmer and gentler.

I have gained a lot from these 12 weeks of study. Not only did I learn narrative techniques, but I was also able to think about how other elements of storytelling, such as light and shade and music, could be further expressed. In addition, these techniques allow me to imagine the scenes as they would play out rather than a mere script. I believe that taking these points will be of great help to me in my future animation work.