Inspiration 10: Meet Meline

Meline is a little girl that spends most of her time drawing in her grandparent’s barn, and she will meet one day a creature that will arouse her curiosity and the action begins. I was interested in the first minute and a half of the movie where the focus is on the little girl drawing, and the drawings she would hang on the board and in the credits at the end where some drawings are put on the floor. The lighting on the drawings and the environment of the room are based on rays of sunlight that enter from holes in the barn house.

Inspiration 9: The last farm

Even though "The Last Farm" didn't influence this project from a technical point, it depicts a deeply emotional story with culturally recognizable themes and issues (loss, death, senior home care issue...) to which viewers from different cultural background can relate to it.

This Icelandic short film shows how strong emotions and personal experience affects our perception and therefore our behavior. An old man is presented working in his land and waiting for his children to come and take him to an elder home, acknowledging to another character in the film that his wife is feeling better and that she is currently sleeping. Only later towards the end do we realize that his wife passed away and he was keeping her death a secret and was in fact digging her grave reaching to the end where he lowers her tomb in the whole, joins her and buries himself alive while his children were about to reach his house.

The idea of loss and emotional pain is presented in different aspects in this film:

- The loss of his wife.

- The loss of his children who are coming to take him to elder home while it is clear in the movie that the old man is still in a very good physical shape. (he built the tomb, dug the grave and lowered it single handedly )

- The concept of being taken away to an elder home can be perceive by the old man as the loss of his remaining members of his family and his land.

This experience of loss has lead to the old man's suicide since he has lost everything and has no reason to live. Even though in this project the case isn't as severe, it is clear that the actions of the father occurred due to his emotions and the loss of his daughter.

Inspiration 8: Nuit Blanche

"Nuit Blanche", a short film by Arev Manoukian, is about two complete strangers sharing a special moment. It's a phenomenon that occurs to anyone, anywhere and it lasts for a split second. Just other short movies that were mentioned before, this short is almost 5 minutes long and features no dialogue, no background story on any of the characters (they are also strangers to the viewers who managed to relate to them as "lovers") and the presence of emotional ambient music. The Influence of Nuit Blanche in this project can be seen in the lack of dialogue, the history of the two characters is a mystery to the viewers, yet it is clear that it's about a father and a daughter (a notion that all viewers have experienced and can relate to in their own personal way). The dominance of emotional music is present also in this project which helped the transition from the "Real" and "Memory", the music starts when the father closes his eyes and starts reliving his memories of his daughter. This can also be seen in Nuit Blanche, the 1st transition between the "Real" and the "Imaginary" occurs with music tempo changes, slow motion shots that last until the second transition which brings the characters back to reality.

Inspiration 7: The Drawer of Memory

This short film was created by Po-Chou Chi, a Visual Communication Design student. Mixing the style of surrealism with 3D animation, Chi stresses on the accumulation of feelings, human affection and the recollection of memories. The drawer of memory expresses that loss is very difficult and memories form an unforgettable past. 

It evident that this short animated film is heavily from Salvador Dali's work, especially from his "anthropomorphic cabinet (aka Drawers of memory)" painting where the character from the short follows the same concept of the character in the painting.

As an artist from the surrealism art movement, Dali was influenced by Sigmund Freud "who discovered that the human body, is today full of secret drawers that only psychoanalysis is capable of opening".

Inspiration 6: La Luna

(Trailer below)

The little boy Bambino was one of my inspirations in texturing and shaping and customizing my character (using The Eleven Rig). His big eyes, small nose and mouth with almost nonexistent lips are the facial traits that I chose for my little girl. The director/writer was inspired by his own life and the relationship between his father and grandfather for the making of his short movie. He took elements of his life like his childhood by the sea in Italy and his experience with his father and grandfather and presented them in La Luna. 

Inspiration 5: Fire in the evening by Paul Klee

Looking at Paul Klee’s work taught me to give more importance to detail and to light and dark values that provide appealing contrasts to my artwork, animations and paintings. I have been encouraged by his devotion to his art to venture in methods and techniques, to experiment and find new ways to express myself. I also noticed that Paul Klee progressively separated colour from physical description and started using it independently, which made his paintings become more abstract. Klee’s work has been described as “alluding to poetry, music and dreams”, three things that are very dear to my heart and that always find a way into my work. In the pre-production and production phase, my work has been inspired by Klee: specially in the use of colors and childlike mood in the film.

Part of my work was inspired by Klee, whether it's how I managed color and visual style, or how I included a childish feel to my artefact. My short film starts with childish drawings and the credits are all written by my 6 year old cousin, I wanted the entire film to relate to childhood.

Inspiration 4 - Geri's game

This award winning short animated film didn't influence this project from a technical point of view. The plot of the short presents an old man trying to pass his time playing against himself in a game of chess.  Geri's game served this project in its phenomenological approach. Despite its playful and cheerful mood, the actions of the main character can be perceived as sad, depicting a lonely old man who experienced the loss of a close friend who he used to play against. This explains the different ways people deal with loss based on personal experience and emotions, phenomena can be perceived differently from person to person. In this case, Geri is an old man who probably accepted the fate of his friend (who's most likely to be of his age) and decided to play against himself to amuse himself due to the absence  another partner .  It is clear that the emotions and reactions of this character are very different from the Old woman from "Drawer of memories".

Inspiration 3: Toy Story

I was inspired by the lighting concepts in “Toy Story”, especially by how the first scene was warmly lit, to represent a child’s memory of his first playtimes. My interest in coloring and my reflection on John Lasseter’s work have given me new dimensions on how to use colors to reflect the mood I want in the scene. I learned that colouring is as important as any other aspect in a scene. I was also inspired by Sharon Calahan, lighting technical director in the film, his work helped me realise how much lights can add visual interest to the film. Lights can create drama as they would in any live-action film. Andy's room, for example, has high-key, warm lights to create a happy, friendly, safe place. In my environment concept of the piano scene, I used very warm colours, mainly orange to create my atmosphere. I understood the importance of colours for the representation of emotions and memories.

The narrative of Toy Story revolves around toys, which are common across cultures and countries and that allowed the movie to be more universal. Toy Story’s main characters are toys and the narrative revolves around them. Nostalgia, childhood and toys are key elements of the Toy Story franchise.

The majority of the “Toy Story” s target audience have or have had playful childhood experiences with toys and Pixar's character designs reflect the universality of the toys, which are not products of any specific era, because audience of all ages can relate to the toys in the film.

Toy Story and representation of Nostalgia:

The 3 Toy Story films demonstrate a good understanding of complex viewer nostalgia. The films engage with the semiotics of toys, as a trigger of nostalgia and the memories of childhood. Having childhood as a theme, the film provokes much emotion across diverse audience.In my short film, I decided to have a piano toy as a trigger for the story in my short movie. The piano represents at the same time Childhood and nostalgia. The action starts in the little girl’s room where we find toys and drawings. I did not want to have a room crowded with toys, so I did my best to pick the ones I thought would be the most common across cultures and genders.

Inspiration 2 - Father and Daughter

In this short movie, the daughter’s faithfulness for her father is most striking. Even though years have passed, she did not let go. The tree next to the hill that leads to the sea is the element that draws the girl to remembering her father and hoping to find him there. The focus in this short movie is on loss and attachment and not nostalgia or memory that take the actors to previous moments they have lived.  It is striking how the characters lacked detail in their anatomy (most characters are presented as different silhouettes with variation of sizes) and any facial expression but still managed to touch the viewer's emotions with the use of semiotics: even though characters have no detail, viewers were able to identify the character as father and daughter due to their size, gestures, signs, which were enough for the audience to understand the meaning of the story and relate to the main characters. What is interesting is that this movie was used as an animation lesson where the students were asked to formulate different stories behind what happened (why the father left, what did he tell her when they met again...) which means that results are going to be different due to the various ways the students will perceive the film based on their past experiences. The inspiration coming from "Father and Daughter" can be seen in my major project, in its lack of detail concerning the story behind of the daughter and her father (how did he lose her?) allowing room for the viewers to formulate possible hypothesis concerning what happened. Here is the link to the lesson.

Inspiration 1: La maison en petits cubes

Unlike other short films,  "La Maison en petits cubes" doesn't show directly a character coping with loss, but a character with forgotten memories who later started to relive his memories while exploring the sunken house of his youth to look for his pipe.

This short movie also proves the phenomenological approach to this project showing how personal experience and memories can affect our perception of the world around us. It is interesting that even though this film resembles some of the other short movies that I will post about, in its lack of dialogue or spoken words, but the focus on the music in this case stimulates the senses of the audience and helps them to relate easier to the unnamed character who in the beginning was just a an object in the movie but later on became a more sympathetic character that attracts the attention of the viewers.

This project also shows the "father" who was just an object of curiosity in the opening scene but later became an element dominated by emotions, with the help of the of musical transitions and lack of dialogue, reliving memories of his daughter playing piano after he noticed the red piano on the floor. References: - vivafruit (2009), La Maison en Petits Cubes Review    Available at: http://www.anime-planet.com/reviews/a652.html