Theme: Play and Abstraction
Context:
In the class, Matt introduced a form of animation: abstract animation, and Len Lye’s work “A Colour Box” left a deep impression on me. After class, I looked up the introduction and history of this field and got a further understanding of it. As Korakidou said in his article on the language of abstract animation, abstract animation allows “artist to conceive and form his image of the world through directly perceivable sensory qualities, such as colors, shapes, sounds, movements.”
Moreover, Arnheim, the German-born writer, art and film theorist, first raised this basic aesthetic question of “how various media can be combined in a work of art”. Inspired by his question, I invited Xincheng Wang who is good at 2D hand-painted animation to work together to make an abstract animation that combines 2D and 3D.
Method:
Create the 2D part of the animation in Procreate. (Xincheng)
produce 3D scenes, moving shader and 3D animation with C4D.(Wanting)
Eedit video and music in Premiere.(Wanting)
Response:
The concept of this animation was inspired by the movie Birdman. In the film, the daughter shares with her father a mehod of detoxification: drawing lines on toilet rolls. Each line represents a year, and the years of human existence are only one part of it. After discussing with Xincheng, wo both felt that this concept can be conveyed by showing the movement and texture of lines.
On the basis of Xincheng’s 2D animation, I added 3D animation. The 3D objects will transform into different shapes over time, such as sphere, cube, triangular pyramid, and so on. In addition, the texture, size and movement of models also change with the rhythm of the background music.
Reflection：
This is an amazing and precious online collaboration. Since Xincheng is good at 2D hand-drawn animation, and I am familiar with 3D, the outcome combing 2D and 3D is incredible, it magnifies the advantages of both. In fact, this project does not have high technical requirements and does not take up a lot of our time. In about a day, we quickly decided the concept and had everything done for the animation, including video editing and sound. However, this is just a rough attempt and leaves a lot to be desired.
- length of video
Our initial goal was to make a short animation around 40 seconds, but obviously we were only halfway there.
- low communication efficiency
Since we cannot meet (I am in Australia, Xincheng is in China), we can only communicate by typing or facetime, some good ideas or sketches need more time to explain.
Reference:
Korakidou V, Charitos D. On the language of Abstract Animation[J]. Proceedings of ISEA2008, 2008.
Gascard, Lorettann Devlin. “Motion Painting: ‘Abstract’ Animation as an Art Form.” Leonardo 16, no. 4 (1983): 293–97. https://doi.org/10.2307/1574955.
Len Lye, “A Colour Box”
Diebold B, Blower J. A New Art: The Visual Music of Film[J]. Art in Translation, 2016, 8(1): 47-52.
Gascard L D. Motion Painting:'Abstract Animation as an Art Form[J]. Leonardo, 1983, 16(4): 293-297.
