On this third year, we get the chance to select 5 classes that we think will assist us in our final major project; Based on my feedback last year I chose Sound design, Frankenstein lives (experimental character animation), Creative practice (Story writing), Points of entelechy (some abstract art and animation) And storyboarding. I recently attended my first workshop; creative practice.

I chose this workshop as I felt that my story was a little unclear to people last year up until the end; I wanted to take the chance to strengthen my storytelling skills. Based on the Pecha Kucha summer project, I have a rough three ideas I’d like to work on; a cartoon pilot, something about identity and something about imagination. I’m leaning mostly towards my animation idea, and wanted to find a way to make it stand out from other escapism based animation films, which are quite common.

The class was loose and mostly consisted of a whole class conversation, but I learned a few interesting things that I think I can apply to my work. Hearing everyone speak about their ideas, I realised that a lot of my classmates draw from their personal experiences and thoughts when making work. I also do this to an extent, but usually, I’m more focused on trying to elicit a reaction of some kind from my audience than creating something heartfelt to me; I usually focus more on the character acting and the linear storyline than any messages and meanings. I’ve learned that I can strengthen the former by incorporating the latter through this class; A good piece of advice I received from my teacher was to push my own views and thoughts through my films, as it adds a layer of reality to films and could make my characters more believable and interesting.

My idea for my animation includes a man struggling through his boring daily life, and eventually losing himself in his own contrasting and colourful imagination. I wanted to go for a simple premise that a lot of people could relate to, as I feel that with storytelling sometimes less is more, and focus a lot on the animation of the imaginary world. I had been without knowing it, however, sort of neglecting the ‘real world’ portion of the animation; We all know that life is hard and can sometimes feel like it’s just dragging forward, but my character needs a little more depth than just someone who’s miserable so that the audience can relate to him better. I personally have had quite a hard year, and imagination has been keeping me going through hobbies such as animation, drawing, playing games and watching shows; whether it’s my own or someone else’s imagination, I’m able to escape the sometimes dull 24 hours that I have to go through into a limitless and fun world. I think empathizing with my character more and working hard to show the audience life and imagination through my own eyes and perception will stand to make my film more unique; it will add depth and individuality, as I’m the only one who experiences life through my eyes.

As an exercise, we had to jot down 3 things that intrigue us about the world. I only got to do 2; one being how fun activities are often looked down on in favour of more professional ones although we need to maintain balance to stay healthy (thinking about why needing some free time is looked down on when it’s necessary for us all), and ideas of freedom vs. conformity with religious subtext; I thought about who in the world is really ‘free’, and what freedom as a concept even is, as some would say being free to believe in a god and follow his rules is freedom, while others would describe it as conformity with true freedom being acting purely on your own desires. Both of these things are pretty unrelated to my animation, But I do feel that exploring these ideas could also strengthen my narrative; I do regard having fun as just as important as doing work, and I feel I can communicate this to my audience through my animation.

Finally, we discussed mediums we’d like to use to create our films. I already know that I want to further my 2d character animation skills so I’ll definitely carry on with that, and I also want to experiment with mixed media backgrounds and stop motion, as I’ve been playing around with these ideas over the summer. I’d also like to dabble in 3d, possibly through a collaborator; I’d like to really present the imaginary world as a vast and limitless place.

All in all, I’d say this was a useful class. I look forward to exploring storytelling more in the coming weeks.