I've been exploring the idea of masks more and more, trying to develop a simple scenario in which emotional baggage could cause conflict. My initial thoughts, as suggested by members of the brainstorming groups, was to simply portray a number of family arguments perhaps caused by physical conflict of the gigantic mask bags they lug around with them. Perhaps a wife is trying to wash up with her bag beside her, her husband hauls his onto the worktop and breaks a plate, a fight breaks out, a cat steals a mask — that kind of thing. I didn't feel it was strong enough though — there wasn't so much of a meaning I could try to express. It just felt to me like a family wearing a bunch of masks and arguing.
I also tried toying with the idea of the businessman again — perhaps he's stopped taking his 'work face' off at home and his wife is sick of it. There could be pictures on the walls of happier times as she remembers the man he used to be? Again, though, quite a generic message and I was having difficulty deciding how to portray it visually.
I started toying with the idea that the masks don't have to be conventional masks at all — they don't even have to be human. Masks have always been thought of or used to disguise one's true intentions or identity, often so they fit in with another crowd —
Masks contain complete social schemas. Others look at the mask and understand what it represents and know what mask to wear themselves. [...] Masks thus protect the person and facilitate interaction with others. I wear a mask in different situations to be the person I want to be there.
Pretty much what I wanted to express. People project themselves differently depending on who they're with or what they want. A good example might be primary school where you get students segregated into clusters — anybody that doesn't slot into any of those groups is usually picked on. I've always thought of school kids as packs of animals or wolves — I thought that might make a nice metaphor? Wearing wolf or sheep masks?
I had a brief spark of an idea involving a kid being chased through the playground by a pack of 'wolves,' carrying his huge sack of identities, and trying to hide amongst the other 'animals' — but I didn't get very far with it. I think I'm straying too far from the original concept. I need to revert back to the 'domestic' concept. I'm just over-tired and in no fit state to think clearly. I've had a look at quite a bit of reference material, maybe I just need to take a step back and let it sink in?
OK, this one's a bit sillier and it's not animation but it made me chuckle and it's quite a nice take on the theme of identity:
It was created from a very bizarre pitch received in a competition, in which a guy, staring deadpan into the camera, describes a "very serious drama about a guy who grows a mustache and everybody hates his mustache and he's sad because everyone hates his mustache." All's well, though, as our hero eventually finds acceptance in a girl… with a mustache.
It's totally silly but actually quite a refreshing look at the whole thing. Again, an example of a relatively simple concept executed with a bit more depth. It's quite dialogue-heavy, though that tends to be more for comedy value rather than story progression. I'd imagine you could tell a very similar story with no dialogue at all.
Another one from British Animation Classics — Café Bar by Alison de Vere.
I'm really liking the style — the inclusion of a mask is an added bonus — using colours to emphasise all the important or dreamlike segments, a ray of excitement in an otherwise bland existence, establishing false identities before finding acceptance in the mundane and regularity of everyday life.
The scene in the beginning where the man takes off his beard and glasses also got me questioning my use of masks and whether they have to be masks at all — could they not be props or costumes used to project a different identity? What if they weren't human masks? I think the biggest issue at the moment is that I'm trying to make a concept around a film rather than a film around a concept, causing me a bit of difficulty in actually progressing. It feels a bit like I'm creating symbols with nothing to actually symbolise. I think what I need is to take a few steps back and try to come up with a solid concept or theme. If I can summarise my intention — the message of the film — concisely in one sentence then it might be easier to start fitting the rest of the pieces into place.
Had an absolutely terrible time of it this afternoon, I don't know if my brain was just fried or what but I just could not get anywhere. I couldn't seem to hold an image in my brain — I've got a real headache now. And snow blindness from staring at a blank page.
Managed to get my hands on a copy of 'Oozat' though — featured on the British Animation Classics Volume 2 DVD. I had to watch it a couple of times to really 'get it' — it's actually pretty straightforward but I think I tried to over-analyse it the first time, looking too hard for some kind of deep and hidden meaning. I'm always afraid of seeming stupid so I tend to try too hard to 'get' things rather than taking them at face value. Sorry, rambling again! Melty brain no work good.
Anywho, there's a really imaginative use of masks here. I found it interesting how they were used to show expression and identity rather than conceal it — something I'd never considered before!
I was fairly surprised how close it was to my original idea — having the confusion with constantly switching identities rapidly is perfectly captured here and it's kept very simple with only a few characters. I tend to think too much about the larger mechanics of things and sometimes find it difficult to boil it down, so this is a very useful reference. It shows that you really don't need to go overboard with detail — you can summarise potentially complex relationships very quickly with only a few characters. Certainly something to bear in mind.
It's not really related but there was another great short I came across on the DVD — Manipulated by Daniel Greaves (also ex-Farnham!)
It's an absolutely fantastic piece of animation. Demonstrating an animator just having a bit of fun, with an astounding result. I think I've seen something similar before but I don't remember what it was called or who made it (how helpful) but it involved the animator interacting with a rabbit-like character? Always loved these kinds of animation — pure body language and character oozing from every orifice.
Yet another intensive day (thinking hurts)! We had to present our three most robust ideas for feedback and decide on one to develop further in preparation for the pitch next Tuesday.
My three presented ideas were... varying in overall quality, I suppose is the diplomatic way to put it, two centring around identity and the last related to phobias.
My first idea I was initially quite keen on, as previously described I wanted to animate to a recorded interview — similar Aardman's 'Creature Comforts' shorts:
It's a great example of how the best comedy or the best ideas simply come from everyday life and conversation — people say the strangest things and sometimes just shifting the context can make such comments hilarious, poignant or even just depressing. Very witty use of characters and subject displacement — something as simple as a piranha with a toothache works really well. I suppose this is something I'd been hoping I might be able to emulate as well — but in hindsight it's a very different subject and it probably wouldn't have lead to the desired result.
I was thinking of asking people to describe a type of person, group of people or subculture and have the character be built, come to life and change in accordance with the given description. I thought this could have been pretty interesting but it was problematic in that I would have been very limited to what information I could get from interviews. The idea would depend almost entirely from what was given to me — it would have been difficult to plan and schedule for it, and even (as Andy suggested) trying to gently engineer the interviews to give the desired results would have been tricky.
The second idea was the one with the masks; Andy did note that it was the third mask idea he'd heard that day but wasn't terribly surprised as, with four fairly standard themes, common ideas were bound to occur. It is, after all, how you approach and present the idea that's most important. He liked my suggestion of a big bag of masks, being awkward to carry around, representing emotional baggage, and suggested that I condensed the idea down to a simple domestic situation with conflict caused by or involving this baggage, as opposed to having a big long tale of a man getting up, going to work and encountering lots of people. He mentioned I should look at the way Darren Walsh used masks in his graduate film 'Oozat' — so I'll be having a poke around for that.
The third idea was quite similar to the first in terms of execution. Rather than interviewing, I was thinking of simply having some sort of recorded voiceover giving a (fictitious) account of something that had happened to them — a typically 'adult' worry such as debt, redundancy, or some other difficulty but animating that as a child might understand it. I was intending to represent the idea that as we grow older, fears and phobias are commonly seen as something 'childish' or as a sign of weakness — by illustrating them from the innocent perspective of a child I'd hoped to suggest that we are all reduced to a childlike state in the face of fear or danger. The biggest problem with this though is that I wouldn't be writing something that I knew — having never experienced something like severe debt (for example) I'd probably end up giving a very shallow portrayal. I did have some things in my head that I thought could have worked fairly nicely — representing 'debt' (or whatever) as a big, scribbled monster destroying a house as the voiceover described how their family and home was lost — but, ultimately, I do completely agree and it wasn't an idea I felt was really 'working' for me.
I think I'll be sticking with my second idea. The tricky part is going to be coming up with a relatively simple set up and conflict with enough legs to work with. I've been toying around with different settings — an argument over breakfast, washing the dishes, a pub — but nothing's really been sparking my imagination so far. Hopefully a quick break will help!
Interesting example of children's illustrations used in animation — this could be an interesting technique to use in contrast to some quite 'adult' phobias, such as debt, redundancy or getting old.
Phobias are often seen as something quite childish and even a sign of weakness — animating with contrastingly simplistic and childish drawings could represent the perceived innocence of fear, the idea that even the strongest and most authoritative of us are reduced to 'children' in the face of fear.
Really nice little animation I just found on Youtube... super-simple story, just over a minute long, in which a pint-size criminal spends the days leading to his impending execution avoiding everything electrical. I especially love the shower scene.
It's a simple idea but quite well executed! It brings to mind other situations in which you can play around with characters and unfortunate circumstances or conflicting situations — perhaps a vet that's afraid of dogs or a bird that's afraid of heights. The tricky part is keeping it simple and fitting it into a narrative...
