My project is called “Be Open.” I got this project idea from my last story in Creative Writing. The story centered around a hypochondriac cat who loved boxes and a drag queen dog. These two characters would eventually become friends. In the animation I used the dog and the cat but mellowed out their personalities, so they became a scared cat and a helpful dog accompanied by a little chick. In the animation all three of them would eventually become friends just like in my story. I got my inspiration on animating this story from a video animation called ¨How a Blind girl sees the world.¨ This made me want to animate because I saw how effective that animation was to my emotions.
One of the biggest challenges was time. At first I wanted to do an animation on the computer. It would have been easier to clean up and make my piece fluid, but I came to realization very quickly that this idea wasn't possible especially if I didn't know how to use a tablet at all. When I found this out I grabbed a piece of paper and began to draw. The problem with paper animation is that it takes a long time to copy one’s frames because there is no shortcut. Furthermore, you don’t know if you’ve made too fewer of frames or too many because you can't play them back because they are not on the computer. I had over 200 frames in my animation, and I found a way to combat this problem with time -- a fast scanner and a Photoshop timeline. I learned new things; one of the examples is how to make an animation in Photoshop and how to lengthen the time on each frame. I would soon face another challenge -- crashing of the Photoshop program when I was putting audio to my animation. Unfortunately, I couldn't resurrect my previous work, so I had to start over with the audio, which was tedious and took a lot of time. If anything I learned from this experience, it was patience and how to keep my sanity.
My storyline was a cat putting on a sock inside a box, but later on the box breaks. Luckily the cat sees a box on the other side of the street. Being hesitant, the cat approaches the box but stops when it hears squeaks and ruffs. The cat thinks that the dog and the bird are bad, so it runs away and gets trapped in an ally. The dog and the bird approach, and the dog drops a sock for the cat. The cat realizes that the sock is for him/her and opens up to the dog and the chick. They eventually become friends, and the cat opens its horizon and accepts the world as many colors. The theme was that being open might make you much happier in life.
The first connection was in art and what we learned about different colors and how they portray different emotions. I made it, so the cat sees colors that are portrayed by the cat’s emotion to a certain thing. An example would be at the beginning when the box was red (for love) and then it turned brown (a loss of passion) once it broke. Another example is when the dog and the chick were coming towards the cat and the cat was scared of them, so they were colored in purple but then they changed to orange and yellow once the cat became open to them and became less afraid. In other words, the cat accepted them. Also there is another example when this happens when the cat is running away from the dog and the chick, and the background turns blue. I did this because blue is a sad lonely color and it's the only color that is entirely made out of cold colors. The cat at this moment is feeling loneliness and is scared but then at the very end of the animation the scenery becomes warmer with fewer cold colors and at the end it becomes a rainbow. The rainbow represents a good feeling and that the character is happier, more open, and brighter.
My second connection was in Creative Writing. We learned that intensity in writing has a lot to do with tension of the characters and how this could be accomplished by adding compilations to the character. I did this by representing these examples with colors. When something negative happened, I used a lot of cool colors and when something positive happened I used warm colors. My first connection was when that cat is in the box and is happy. I start to add tension by making the box break, resulting in a sad cat. The cat soon spots another box, so it becomes happy. (You can tell this by the sound effect and the warm colors.) Then there is another challenge where the cat gets chased and is terrified. However, there is a positive scene when a plot twist comes in, resulting in ending of tension, which invoked a warm, happy reaction.
My third connection was dance. We learned that music affects the mood of the movement and can give a different feeling to the audience. We also learned that different movements are associated with different colors. I also used the music to convey emotions. An example would be when the cat sees another box and the Haligonia starts playing, This suggests that something good happened. Another example is when the barking starts and Beethoven's 5th symphony starts playing and this brings the mood of uneasiness. An example of using the moment and making it a color is when there are pencil lines around that cat that are purple because it's scared and purple can be a color associated with fear. Another example is when the cat is putting on socks and there are three yellow lines that represent movement, and the yellow color represents that the cat is eager and excited to put on the socks.
My final connection was in drama class. We learned about visceral responses and how color affects style and that affects the mood and information. I was using the colors to convey the cat's emotions towards something specific and that gave the viewers information and built up a mood. The cat's tale is orange and white, which represents a traffic cone. I did this because it would show that the character is cautious. (You can see this when the cat is running away from the dog.) I also tried to provoke a visceral response by using a stray animal in an area of where snow was only falling down on it and then seeing that it might get bullied by the dog but then eventually becomes friends with the dog and the chick. I wanted to provoke an “awww response.” What helped me to accomplish this were cute characters and crayons to give a sense of youth in my drawing. I did this because youth is usually associated with cuteness.
