Introduction to Professional Project

Assignment Aims

This module a client based project designed to suit your own animation interests. The aim is to respond to a creative brief to a high standard with the ultimate aim of client satisfaction.

Assessment Tasks

Create a 15-30 second animated video that effectively represents a brief required by The Peter McVerry Trust and fulfils any creative or professional skills that you wish to address personally or professionally.

Research

For our professional project module we have been asked to develop a concept and make a short 15 - 30 second animated film for the Peter McVerry Trust. The films will be based on interviews from people who have received the support of the trust. We have received three films so far with the possibility of more to come. They are;

Barry - Moving On series

Dwayne - Home for Good

Peter - Housing First Dublin

The Peter McVerry Trust is a charity set up by Fr Peter McVerry to reduce homelessness and the harm caused by drug misuse and social disadvantage. So to begin with I researched the organisation through their website to try to get a sense of their values for myself. What I could identify was a commitment to a set of values which included;

1. Human Rights
2. Creating safe, challenging and supportive environments
3. Warmth and respect
4. Active Encouragement
5. Prevention
6. Empowerment
7. Dignity, respect and opportunity
8. Integration into community
9. Independence
10. Specifically, housing as a human right

One of the challenges that I see in this project is maintaining respect for the words of the service users as spoken in the films and acknowledging their vulnerability. Having not had their lived experience, I will not have the same understanding of the many complex layers of that experience. I see my goal in creating a film as having empathy while not trying to think that I can really know and understand what they’ve gone through. So bearing that in mind I watched the films trying to discover the most appropriate themes to base an animated narrative on.

Barry - Moving On

The emotions that I perceived running through the film were a sense of awe, joy, appreciation and gratitude. And the words that really struck me were when Barry said; 'I christen this Barry's new home’; 'lived in a cell no bigger than this (kitchen)’; 'first cup of tea in my house, what I wanted all along’. I felt an undercurrent of disbelief or an understandable guardedness, I can only guess at the fear that it may be taken away. Despite Barry being on crutches, he moves through every room of the house, exploring the whole space.

The idea for a film that comes to mind is based on that movement, a figure moving through the rooms of a house bringing colour and texture as he goes. The rooms aren't real until he encounters them, he brings the meaning.

Dwayne - Home for Good

Dwayne has been in his home for a year, he lived in one of the trust's hostels before that. The emotions that came to mind were feelings of pride,security and empowerment; 'I can have me family over now’. What really struck me from this film was the symbol of the keys, the power of having your own key, Dwayne states his fear of losing his home when he goes into treatment but he repeats the words of one of his support workers, 'The keys are yours'.

The concept that came to mind from watching this film is based around the symbology of the key. The key as a small token, a talisman that represents the bigger idea of home. I had the image of his house key as a seed, when he carries it with him it's just a key, but when he inserts it in the lock his home grows from it. The key, this small object, holds within it the intention, potential and concept of home. This idea of the importance of the key was reinforced by watching other videos on the client's website documenting other people's experiences of moving into a new home.

Peter - Housing First Dublin

Peter had been staying in hostels and sleeping rough for the past ten years. There seemed a stillness to him as he moved through the house, I got a sense of awe again mixed with disbelief and appreciation. 'It is my gaff’ he says, almost like he's testing the waters. And he speaks of security, privacy and the chance to live a normal life. Then he says it's 'like Christmas morning as a child’, giving me the idea of a long awaited, hoped for gift. The transience and impermanence of being homeless were what struck me, living with no solid base, a ghost-like experience.

For the film the image that struck me was of the different ages of Peter all moving into this house together. Physically he's a man of a certain age but he's bringing his child self, his young man self, they're all coming into this house together to inhabit the house, safe. The memories of their needs from those ages are still with him. I feel the challenge would be how to effectively communicate this concept in a short space of time so that it looks like different aspects of Peter moving in, not different people all moving in together.

From a personal professional perspective I would like to explore using cut-out animation techniques for the film. I work with colour and texture a great deal as an arts educator and would like to bring this experience and experimentation to bear in a film, expressing emotion through colour and texture. The participants words are their self-expression and I see the film as an opportunity to possibly fully express the happiness and relief they may feel. For the visuals I would intend to draw inspiration from the short film The Thomas Beale Cipher by Andrew Allen, with its strong use of graphic forms to communicate movement and tension; and textures to situate the action and give the context of era and place. Also I’m interested in robust use of colour as typified in some of the animated sections of the film I am Sun Mu which can be seen from the trailer.

We will be given a presentation by representatives of the Trust next week. Possible questions I could ask are;

• Given that I have not had the same lived experience as the interviewees and would have limited understanding, what do they feel are the main themes or values they would like to see represented in the films from their experience?
• Having recently worked at an event in Sophia Housing and having heard the chief executive there Tony O’Riordan call it the ‘trauma of homelessness’, would they use the same words? Could they talk about that?
• Is there any one item that indicates to you that a person has really moved into a home, like a fish-tank or a fancy plant, is there a type of item that says that very strongly?

Draft Script Number Three

Story Development - Prose Treatment

Engaging with the story from a prose perspective helped me greatly in visualising what was required to create a coherent film narrative. I began to really think about the transitions, for instance the carpet at the start of the second sequence literally growing from the darkness at the end of the first sequence, as if it were soil. Also the biggest change from the comic story comes when the Melancholic Wife grasps one of the ghosts from the white room and brings it with her to the final sequence. When composing this piece it became apparent that I needed to show a symbol of the characters learning that enables her to access her self-expression where she wasn't able to before. I feel like her grasping the ghost to her chest and dancing with it indicates an acceptance of her younger self. It can hopefully be an expression of innocent joy that supports her to counter the embarrassment feelings.

Prose Treatment

The Melancholic Wife loved to dance. With positive intention she tentatively makes her first movements, she begins to move her feet in time with an internal beat. The movement travels up her body, relaxing her hips and loosening her arms. As the Melancholic Wife becomes more confident in her rhythm she becomes aware of the world outside of her body. Dim wooden floorboards of memory rise to meet her feet, she dances on. Ever since she had been a melancholic teenager she had danced to cope with the dark and troubled thoughts that lived in her mind. She dances on but the memories overtake her, swallowing her whole in the dim recess where they live.

A carpet grows in the shadow of her memory but as soon as it is fully formed two gloved hands appear and reach down to pull it up from a corner. When the Melancholic Wife was young, her parents had taken up the carpets in the bedrooms of their house. Bare wooden floorboards were revealed underneath. They sanded and varnished them. Now when she danced her feet didn’t fall on soft, absorbent carpet, they landed with a thud on varnished wood. This looked much better, but it meant that the sound from the bedrooms above travelled easier to the rooms below.

The remembered, perceived waves of the sound of her dancing feet rush down the paths of her memory, descending on the Melancholic Wife. Often when visiting her parents now, she would cringe when she heard her mother move around overhead. They must have had to listen to her shuffling, moving and jumping while accompanied by the popular music of the day. As the first remnants of recalled sound reach the Melancholic wife, they surround her, overwhelm her, encompass her in their echo of shame. Embarrassment of the past can be a cruel trick of the human psyche. She begins to run, fleeing through the halls of her memory, tearing at her clothes in her distress. But the waves of recollection pursue her, did she really think it would be so simple, that she could just outrun them. And now the halls she races through, they’re coming to an end, trapped, she will be trapped in the percussions of memory. The Melancholic Wife slams against the wall, as if trying to break through, but the wall remains unmoved. She turns to face the oncoming wave, her back to the wall, her hands pressing against it, as if trying to melt through, then her fingers travel its surface like scuttling spiders, searching for cracks. The wave rushes closer and she can feel herself becoming lost within the loop of memories of memory. Her hand brushes against metal, dragging her back to herself. She grasps the object, her mind slowly recognising it, a door handle. It turns, a doorway opens, she falls through, the door slamming shut behind her before the wave hits.

An empty room, the Melancholic Wife finds herself in an empty, white, quiet room. She looks up and the walls seems to reach skyward forever. She tries to discern the ceiling but the harder she peers the softer the edges of the room become in the diffuse light, until it almost seems like shapes are forming up high. The Melancholic Wife stares, fascinated at these apparent figures, lost in their intricacy as they float gently down towards her. Their forms begin to materialise, they are her, the Melancholic Wife, spectres of her, dancing on air, unafraid of sound. She opens her arms to them, to herself. She tries to be kind to herself when she thinks of the teenager she had been. But some tasks are so large that the effort required to complete them is too overwhelming to comprehend, never mind to endeavour upon. The Melancholic Wifes arms are open, her face is pointed skyward, and there are so many ghosts of memory to embrace, that she doesn’t notice the sharp hands, pulling her under into the darkness of her shadow.

The Melancholic Wife struggles against the grip of the darkness. She reaches out and grabs at one of the dancing spectres like a lifeline, expecting her hand to pass through it but she grasps it, and clasps it to her chest as they are both pulled violently down into darkness.

The Melancholic Wife wakes as a spotlight flashes on in the darkness, illuminating the hard ground she is lying on. She traces the outline of the light with her eyes, it’s in the shape of a house. The thought strikes her that she liked it best when she had the house to herself, she could make as much noise as she liked. She feels a flutter in her chest and the dancing ghost she brought with her emerges from between her arms, rising to float above her. The Melancholic Wife stands, there is something in her pocket. Reaching in she finds earphones which she pulls out. She slips the earphones into her ears and selects music that speaks to her soul. She presses her feet into the ground and as it grows between her toes, she is grateful for the soft carpet under her bare feet. In an instant, the light changes, the Melancholic Wife feels its focus is now solely on her. She begins to move and in her movements she unmakes and remakes the shape of her life. She builds with her mind and body a new world she could inhabit and thrive in. The light travels into her and flows freely from her. The ghost of her past self darts and dances through the light, reveling in the creation. Together they disappear into this new world of movement and melody until she is sated. The Melancholic Wife can then re-emerge back into the unromantic walls of her real life, striving to hold on to the nuances of her transmutations.

Visual Reference - Comic Source Material

The full comic I'm adapting for my short film as originally presented.

My intention is to follow the black and white aesthetic of the comic in the production of the film and as I progress in the adaptation process I would like to explore using colour in a controlled way and it's potential to support the narrative. With regard to the character design, I am going to use the storyboard process to find out what will be required of the character in terms of movement. This will help me to understand what adaptation to make to the hair, clothes and body design.

Visual Reference - Source Material Overview

The source material for my film comes from a comic that I co-created with my partner, artist Sadhbh Lawlor. It's from a series called The Melancholic Wife and her Perpetrating Husband, Sadhbh wrote the stories for the series and I illustrated them. Briefly, the artistic aim of the series is to explore narratives in a short story form and examine the use/misuse of simplistic labels to try describe the complexity of a whole person. There was a conscious decision made to not show either of the main characters faces in the comic so that the reader was encountering them through the words of the narrative, the label that is their names and the actions of the characters in response to situations.

The Melancholic Wife has been the focus of four episodes of the series.


This is her first appearance in episode one.

 
Episode three.


An appearance in episode six, a Perpetrating Husband story.

  
Episode seven.

Story Development - Treatment

The Melancholic Wife Loves to Dance Short film treatment

A woman walks on to a white screen and tentatively begins to dance. Floorboards rise from below to meet her steps, making the screen darker until they swallow the woman in total black.

A carpet grows from the black and hands reach down to pull it up, revealing bare floorboards underneath. These are sanded and then varnished. A foot lands on the floor creating reverberations of sound. The sounds travel down and reach the woman who is standing below the floor. As they reach her the woman becomes distressed, she begins to hurry away in agitation, struggling to wrestle out of her coat. It drops to the floor as she hurries away trying to escape the sound. She comes to a door, opens it and steps through into a white room.

As the woman closes the door behind her, ghosts of herself appear and she moves to embrace them. As she does this sinister hands reach out from her shadow and pull her aggressively away into blackness. She manages to bring a ghost with her into the black.

A spotlight comes on in the dark, the light it shines on the floor is in the shape of a house. The woman is lying curled up on the floor. The ghost rises from her arms and she stands, she reaches into her pockets, takes a pair of earphones out and places them in her ears. Different music plays quickly until she selects one song. She grounds her feet, feeling carpet between her toes. The spotlight narrows and centres on the woman, entering into her body making her the only light source. The woman begins to move and first with her fingers then with her whole body she draws a landscape in light that surrounds her in the darkness, strengthening her. The ghost dances through the lines of light disappearing into it. When she brings her movements to a close she strides confidently towards the camera and as she fills the screen we see a representation of her creation on her clothes.

The task to try and tell the comic narrative in short prose form with respect to film is challenging and interesting. In adapting for a different media, different elements of the story naturally come in to focus. For instance the use of black and white on a comic page has to bear in mind not only the composition of a single panel but also the look of the page as a whole as a reader encounters both. The composition for film feels much more related to time. For film I'm discovering the need to respect timing and motion at this initial story stage. A reader is in control of the timing of their reading, while a film viewer is at the mercy of the filmmaker. I think some of the ambiguity of the comic needs to be cleared to create a strong film narrative. Actions and movements that can be suggested in the imagery of the comic have to be definitively nailed down.

Character Development

In order to help develop and understand the motivations of the Melancholic Wife, Sadhbh Lawlor the writer of the original comic script, created mind maps broken down into the three main contributing themes that helped create the original story. These are; Dancing; the Past; and Transmutation.

Story Development - Controlling Idea

As part of the process of developing our story ideas for film we have been introduced to exercises and concepts from the book Story by Robert McKee. One of these concepts is something called the Controlling Idea, which on first hearing made me balk somewhat at the idea of being 'controlling' but it has helped me understand the importance of having a strong singular intention at the heart of the film to help inform, support and inspire other threads that arise.

A CONTROLLING IDEA may be expressed in a single

sentence describing how and why life undergoes change from one

condition of existence at the beginning to another at the end.

Story by Robert McKee, pg. 115

It consists of value and cause, identifying the positive or negative outcome or value at the climax of the film and the reason that value changed to that state. So for my film I went through a few iterations before coming to the final idea. These included;

Creative self-expression is achieved because the protagonist accepts her past.

Self-determination is restored because the protagonist uses self-expression to define her own reality.

Vulnerability is accepted because the protagonist creates beauty from the darkness.

While I felt that these expressed something within the story, I didn't feel like they were communicating the nuance of the original piece, the seeking for balance, not an outright victory in the situation because that is impossible in the wider context. So the final one reads as;

The protagonist brings herself to a state of temporary existential

equilibrium through employing the tools of creative self-expression.

This sentence describes for me the struggle that happens throughout the story and helps me to keep in mind that in the end it's not about some form of a victory, it's about the process of self-expression as an ongoing resource.

Main Film Proposal

For the beginning of the BA course we were asked to prepare a presentation to introduce ourselves and our work. We were also asked to present our ideas for our main film project, our solo film, to be produced by the end of the year. For my film I have chosen to adapt a short comic story from the web-comic I created in partnership with my partner, writer/artist Sadhbh Lawlor.

The web-comic is called Splitting Borders and the story is part of a series within it, The Melancholic Wife and her Perpetrating Husband. The story, episode five in the series, was written by Sadhbh and illustrated by myself. I have Sadhbhs permission to adapt it for animation and I will be keeping her informed of the adaptation process to ensure it stays connected to her original intention for the story and our collaboration.

For the presentation I created a motion comic of the original illustrations with a scratch track of the text voiced by myself.