Animated Narratives - Week 9

This week we looked at different ways in how time can be used in the staging and communication of narratives. We also explored the concept of time as mutable and elastic.

When I thought of time, the first thing that popped up in my mind was Ageing, how we all surrender to the fact that we keep getting older as time goes by. I came up with the following premise: A woman uses a magic clock to rewind time in order to stay young.

Based on this, I came up with the following short story, which I then illustrated in the form of a storyboard:

• A woman hates being old
• She keeps rewinding time using a magic clock so that she’ll stay young forever
• However she becomes addicted to manipulating time and the magic clock breaks down
• She watches in horror as she becomes old again, with white hair and sagging skin
• She has to resign herself to being old for the rest of her life.

This idea is inspired by the movie Tangled (2010) by Walt Disney Pictures, the iconic adaptation of the classic fairytale Rapunzel. In the movie, Rapunzel’s evil “mother” uses her magical hair to keep herself young and beautiful.

Through this activity I gained insight into how time as a character/concept can be used to depict something that is not “normal” - such as reverse ageing - and how as storytellers we can bend time to our will. This story is meant to be a reflection of our own vanity and how humans think they are above the laws of the world/nature in order to gain what they desire.