Digital Media Development: Rationale

Digital Development module is a great opportunity to improve my professionalism as moving image specialist. I have been mainly focusing on the digital approach to the briefs for the last two years. This time I am going to make a slight shift and use computer technology in mixture with some classical techniques, such as – drawing, painting, collage and probably sculpture. During the summer break I made some research for this module. Finally I came up with idea of making animated cartoon based on some existing story. At some degree it will cross over with my dissertation topic called – “Influence of cartoons on children’s world outlook”. I looked at some poems like “Wizard of Oz” and “Guest from the future”. Finally I found very nice Russian folklore fairy tale called “Magic water”. It is edifying story telling us about humbleness on the example of the family life. This cartoon is aimed for both children and mature people. There are some dialogues in this story but I want to tell it in complete visual way. This approach will open this animation for the people all around the world indifferently the language they speak. Also it will save my time on designing sound accompaniment.

In this project I want to learn some new techniques for myself. Ideally I wanted to make animation purely in stop-motion, but due to the time constraints it is not possible. After making some research I found efficient alternative – make all the assets by hands, as I would use them for stop-motion, scan them, make necessary manipulations in Photoshop and animate using After Effects. This way of doing it will slightly change approach but will save the general idea. So far I watched numerous animations made in similar way analyzing principles and highlighting some useful tricks. There are some really great examples of classic/handmade animation. Especially I liked the ones made by Yuriy Norshteyn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Norstein?) and Soyusmultfilm Studio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuzmultfilm).

In terms of sound my intentions is to find the right soundtrack which will make some special feeling to the animation, also I want to make some sound special effects, most of them I am hoping to find in BBC sound library and record the missing ones by myself.

This project will be same challenging as exciting. I hope to execute it on the appropriate level that it will be the great part of my portfolio and I could send this film out to the various animation festivals all around the world.

inspiring styles: