APD Play and Nature Week 10

Play and nature
https://youtu.be/EFehx_7xCo0 

This week I am trying to make stop-motion with leaves. This is inspired by Holland and Amber's (2021) work APD: WEEK 9 NATURE | Master Of Animation, Games & Interactivity (magistudio.net).they have presented work with dialogue and nature materials. I also get my inspiration in imitating ecosystems from the work “Project Oasis” by Harpreet Sareen (2018). They have built an interactive system of plants that reflects the weather. Without making a built model of the ecosystem, I am trying to do it in an animation.  

I want to use elements from nature to explore the shape and form of life. At first, I was thinking of using raindrops to be the medium. Considering the hardness in gathering and isolating the droplets, I then decided to collect leaves and try to play with the wormholes on the leaves with stop-motion.

Method:

I collected fallen leaves for the project. Then I shot the stop-motion frames by frames. Afterwards, I edit the animations in Premiere.       

Response:

After collected the leaves, I have given up with the idea on play with the wormholes as the leaves I collected rarely have significant holes for editing. Then I tried to imitate the ecosystem by combining leaves. Combining last week’s idea on abstraction, I used leaves as symbols to different objects or characters. In the last short animation “Family”, I tried to tell a story where leaves play different roles in the family. It is abstracted that different people might have their interpretation on the sex, role, age of the leave representing, and how the story goes. The story also contains elements of birth and separation which are the essential process of the ecosystem. This is also the interested audience can play along with their experience on the journey.

The sequence, in the beginning, is my favourite clip as it gathers and arranges the leaves to imitating a decadent of a life form. It is intentional to start from the biggest leave with a healthier-looking. This is a projection of the morphing of life form which happening subtly and consistently.

I also tried to combine leaves and project new animals:  peacock, bird, lion. I accidentally come up with this idea when I try to find new sequences in the leaves. By giving different outputs of work, the existence of leaves has shifted from not only being a part of a tree, but also a part of the little community that I have created.

Holland Kerr and Amber Southall (2021). APD Week 9 Play and Nature | Master Of Animation, Games & Interactivity (magistudio.net)

Harpreet Sareen (2018). “Project Oasis”.Project Oasis by Harpreet Sareen - Experiments with Google