Spider City

The Spider City Project is a short film that explores the concept of Visual Storytelling Using Animation. The aim of this project is to experiment with various ‘mixes’ of animation techniques to create different worlds and tell the story.

Conceptual

Story Telling Animal

In his book The Storytelling Animal Jonathan Gottschall states that storytelling is a fundamental human instinct. He talks about humans being “wired” for stories and that our lives are filled with stories of all types from day-to-day conversations to films, books and even jokes. In his TEDxFurmanU talk he relates to how the Hieider and Simmel (1944) study in the field of interpersonal perception shows how receptive, humans are in developing stories in their own minds. They showed them a basic geometric animated film then asked them questions on what they thought was going on in the film.

After watching this animation almost all people came up with a whole variety of narratives and very few treated it as the pure movement of shapes on a screen – see An Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior. With this in mind the animator has the means to stimulate the viewers ability to see the story in an animation and in this abstract example the stories could be quite different.

Animated Worlds

To explore the concept of Visual Storytelling Using Animation the Spider City film is broken up into six separate narratives or different segments to be journeyed through. Then using a different animation technique (or variation on) and/or a combination of techniques for each segment it is intended to exercise the audiences interpretation of each of the narratives to demonstrate that despite the collage of visuals the human mind will piece together a story. There are two ‘world’ locations in Spider City the real shots 1-6 (playground and house) and the animated shots 7- 23 (blackboard) however in the real world there is a crossover where movement and some objects are animated. Animation of background and objects in the real world is intended to connect the movements with those of the animated spiders. In both worlds the spiders, eyes and father will change from drawn to puppets and back again.

Heather Crow’s paper in Animated Worlds (Suzanne Buchan (ed.) London: John Libbey Publishing, 2006. ISBN: 0 86196 661 9) talks of Gesturing and quote likens them to ‘wandering homeless ghosts [that] take up residence in alien bodies, there to play out the repetition that is their destiny’ unquote. This statement describes exactly the feeling I want viewers to experience in Spider City so they can ‘feel’ the characters visually. Gesturing in this content relates to the dynamic of movement and in this case the environment as well that help create new uncanny worlds. By animating the surrounds separately from the objects within it I want to disconnect them from each other but continue to have them in the same space – out of sync worlds co-existing and then by changing the objects form i.e. drawn – puppet – drawn. The Comb (from the Museums of Sleep) combines puppet animation and live-action to such an extent that the clash of worlds is as Sigmund Freud termed  ‘Uncanny‘ – quote  ‘the anxious imbrication of the strange and the familiar‘ unquote. I am trying to increase the uncanny feeling by mixing everything up a bit more using the mix of animation as the catalyst.

Animation

Spider City will incorporate different animation techniques (or variation on). The animation techniques, test examples and references are listed below.

Pixalation

The live character (father) in the first few sequences will be animated using pixalation.

Jan Svankmajer’s film Food is the inspiration behind pixalation and creating that mechanised movement which seems to remove the consciousness of the human form.

Object/Puppet Stop Motion

The spiders and eyes will created in Stop Motion.

The puppet spider and eye bodies consist of painted foam shapes and the spider legs are black pipe cleaners. This Stop Motion video was produced to test the spider movements.

The clay ball movement used in the Stop Motion test will be what the foam eyes will be based on. The Brothers Quay Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies is the type of feel I want to give Spider City especially in regards to the eyes.

Environmental Stop Motion

Stop motion of the environment or movement through it will be used.

Although the Brothers Quay didn’t exactly animate their environments they put life into the surrounds and made them interact with the objects. 1987 Bruno Schultz’s Street of Crocodiles is a good example of this.

Another example of interacting with the environment is The Flat by Jan Svankmajer which basically has the flat interior as another character in the film. In Spider City I intend animating the live environments separately to the character/object so in a way I am going in the opposite direction to Svankmajer’s Flat with no bringing together.

This is a teaser clip for Spider City, which uses an animated background and using clip inserts to add the father in. I have also used some you tube green screen animations (human eye and spider attack) to demonstrate the integration of  different types of animation. Note in final project the eye and spider attack will be created in stop motion.

Shadow Puppets

Shadow puppets will be interchanged with drawing, stop motion puppets and live action.

Shadow Puppets animation by Chuck Gamble of Lucky Radish Studio is the look and feel of the puppetry I would aspire towards.

Chasing Shadows is an example of work I have already done using shadow puppets and is an example of silhouette shadow puppets. Chasing shadows is an example of how to bring an animation alive by using multiple layers of sound – 8 layers were used for this production with some set not to hear but feel.

Drawing

Drawing elements in the film will be centred on the blackboard which provides a screen and window to the world of the before death visions, messages and spiders.

Funny Faces 1906 represents the type of chalk drawing style I would like to achieve in this film.

Chalk animation test for the Spider City car crash sequence to try out chalk background with a paper cutout car and chalk explosion.

Computer 2D

Some elements of this film will be completed in computer 2D e.g. the chalk writing will be animated writing but will be done in After Effects as per this Chalk Writing tutorial.

Production Process

The production process of Spider City was Logline to Synopsis to Narrative to Beat Script and finally Storyboard. Originally the narrative was to be narrated but on reflection and to truly develop the Visual Storytelling concept I will let the visuals (and soundtrack) tell the story.

Logline

If you know when a person is about to die do you tell them?

Synopsis

A father and his son would regularly go to a nearby playground which they named Spider City because of the rope structure that was there in the shape of a spider’s web. When his son left home his father would still visit the playground. One day after having been at the playground he heard the ‘squeaky’ sound of chalk on a blackboard. Upon checking it he saw that his son’s name was written on it and a few days later he died. After subsequent visits to the playground he found other names on the blackboard, and these people would soon die. There was a long list of names one time which he recognised some from a report about a fire in an Asylum. Today he found familiar name on the blackboard he contacted this person and got them to quickly come over, when they arrived he told them the story about the Spider City. The narrative for Spider City is based on an original ‘narrative’ poem, and provides the basis of the animated segments and subsequent story line.

Narrative

My son and I used to enjoy our visits to the rope web

It is next to the swing whose chains squeal back and forth

We called this place Spider City

(Click, clack spider prey sound)

Tonight when I returned to my empty house

The squeak of chalk sounds a name upon the blackboard

And the door creaks open to reveal my sons name

(Click, clack spider prey nearby)

The next day he drove to a head on death

And the spiders came to take his eyes away

(Click, clack spider prey him)

Now I wait for the chalk to read a new name

I will then hear of their fate

And the spiders will come again

(Click, clack spider prey other)

One time it was a list of many

Who had all been burnt alive

The spiders took many eyes away that day

(Click, clack spider prey them)

Now you sit opposite me as I tell this tale

Another name appeared today

It is you

(Click, clack spider prey you)

Beat Script

1. Father walks past ‘Spider Web’ in playground.
2. Father walks towards Swings in playground.
3. Father walks into house.
4. Father walks into lounge and sits down.
5. Father stands and goes out into corridor.
6. Father walks up to door and enters room.
7. Look at blackboard and sees son name.
8. Son car accident.
9. A tear dribbles down board then face fades away leaving only the eyes.
10. Spiders push eyes down and away.
11. Look at blackboard and another name.
12. Person climbing.
13. See persons face then falls quickly leaving eyes.
14. Spiders push eyes away.
15. Look at blackboard list of names.
16. Eye hands slapping at window.
17. Flames rise up around hands then hands go leaving eyes.
18. Spiders push many eyes away.
19. Look at blackboard and familiar name.
20. Call familiar person.
21. Person moves in to sit opposite.
22. Person morphs into spider.
23. Spider jumps at the screen.
24. Audio spider eating flesh.

Storyboard

Notes

1. Some animations will be filmed with a green screen and inserted into the blackboard which will act as screen.
2. Other animations will be filmed directly on the blackboard and inserted into the black board frame.
3. The film will be in black and white to enhance the sombre atmosphere of the film.
4. All live footage will have reduced opacity to let the texture of the blackboard come through the footage.
5. Park footage will be filmed on site at Claudelands Park Playground.
6. House footage will be filmed at 23 Heaphy Terrace, Hamilton.
7. The POV transition will be from a fixed point of view as if through an eye-opening and closing.
8. All sound not produced live will sourced from freesound.org and used under the creative commons license.

Project Animation

To see the final project animation please click on the below link.