Statement of Intent

Ever since I went into Leeds Arts University and got interested in 2D animation, I have wanted to create my own narrative. With these past years of practicing different styles of animation, learning how to operate software programs, and developing my technique, I believe this is the firm moment where I can culminate my university degree with a substantial piece. Of course, I still adore stop-motion in all its illustrious sublime, however, I have made several such elongated stories, some of which I will revisit with their respective sequels once I graduate. With my thorough research into COP where I have thrown myself into the realm of avant-garde and experimental styles of animation within the Yugoslavian era, I have become infatuated by the versatile conventions of simplicity that, in the end, add more of an aesthetic variety as well as a pleasant journey than does complex details which I have been helplessly spending time trying to perfect. Instead, the exaggerated form of characters can outweigh what’s within them in a variation of “thinking outside the box”. Thinking over the summer, I had been developing several ideas for a narrative within my mind and by sharing them with my friends, I was able to get constructive criticism of both a positive and negative nature. Based on their reactions, I picked one concept of an idea that I then developed into a rough treatment, which upon this statement of intent (and the consequential presentation) I shall start elaborating into a detailed script and story that would hopefully persuade me into using a new visual style with the digital brush set I received from one of my peers and in doing so practicing said technique. Alongside this, I will be collaborating on this project with several Macedonian illustrators, most presumably on backgrounds, so that I may validate my self-dictated case study of working collaboratively through a cyber space, hence for now my artistic future might revolve around me working internationally from back home, where I will return upon graduation. My story is based on one post-mortem testament desire that I relayed to several friends as a joke, which I gradually developed into a plot. Four best friends form a pact to always share their secrets and never break the code of friendship, in a sworn oath fashion. One of them dies, and within his testament it is written that he desires his skull to be detached from his carcass and transformed into an ash tray with two rubies implanted in his eye holes preceding his cremation. This ash tray would symbolically circle around his friends one week per person and with every lit cigarette, the spirit of the character will awaken as we will start viewing the story from his eyes as he catches every single one of his friends sharing a cigarette during their primordial sins that they have kept a secret from him. In the climax, all of his friends will light a cigarette together and awaken the grim reaper assembling from his skull as he confronts every single one of his friends for their dishonesty prior to decapitating them for breaking the seal. In the end, an old man with an appearance similar to the initially dead friend would be trying to interest an old lady in buying one of three skull-shaped ash trays within this mysterious antique shop. 

Lifting Tower Project - Synthesis of Storyboards

Based on the individual ideas Stacy and I had annotated, we merged them together to form coherent storyboards that we are to use for the idea pitch on the 24th of October. We made three storyboard ideas that fused what I had to present and what Stacy had. For example, one of the ideas features my idea of ornaments spinning radially to form a wreath and Stacy's concept of radial Christmas items like the Christmas pudding and the snowflake. I feel this added variety to the overall idea considering I had not even though about a snowflake and did not know (until now) what a Christmas pudding is. Alongside this, in order to conceptualize the spirit of Christmas that we want to capture, we created color palettes with the dominant colors that we are to use for the animations. Everything is amenable for the time being up until we start animation, so the color palette as well as details of the ideas might change. Once Jimmy supplies us with constructive criticism and decides upon which one we are to do (or which two), we will create an accurate and detailed storyboard so that we do not drift astray when we are to animate - to establish consistency.

Lifting Tower Project - Individual Generation of Ideas

In accordance to the suggested sequence of dates versus development, I have devised on a timetable in order to tackle the project without losing time for other inbound briefs as well. I have teamed up with Stacy Straub considering that most of the illustrators did not express an interest in what seems to be an optional task for them. Stacy and I sat down together and decided on the gameplan, the first step being the individual generation of ideas that we will then discuss once laid down on paper and pick the best one(s) that we are to make a storyboard of and pitch. My ideas revolve around a simple progression of visual narrativeless manifestations. Keeping it simple, they will revolve around simple vividly colored graphics. Once Stacy and I meet up, we might mix and match the ideas we have and create and fortify a bigger idea, since mine are only concepts in thumbnails. I constructed the simple ideas using the key visual tropes that I saw recurring on the lst year's lifting tower projection, and wanted mine to reflect the spirit of Christmas into the hearts of every single passer by.

Loop De Loop: Love is Love - Evaluation / Reflection / Finalization of Animation

Overall, I am extremely happy with my animation, although it pointed me towards the realization that I need more dynamics in my future animations - they lack 3D POVs. As I relied on the straight-ahead technique I gained ideas as I animated, effectively challenging my creative skills. I added the razor scene instead of razors coming out of the heart as in my sketchbooks, omitted the dogs (because of their irrelevance), added the flags at the end, and while compositing, added the black waves on the first and last third of the shot (for aesthetics). I am happy that I can draw simply but still create a full space within an animation. Although I submitted the animation for LoopDeLoop, they asked for me to enable the download video option which Vimeo has now monetized for use - might pay 5 pounds just for a monthly subscription for the screening. This animation wasn't as quick as I thought it would be, and although it did not alter my schedule with other briefs it made me kick-up my hours work per day routine. This small little project was a great warm up for my final animation which might look at different ways of using the same brush tools.

Love is Love - https://vimeo.com/238801869

Loop De Loop: Love is Love - Initial Production and Mind Map

Love is Love is quite a ubiquitous theme, so I dedicated this loop to the love I have towards my best friend, Alexander. Considering this is a small brief, I discarded unnecessary pre-production conventions such as storyboards and instead only devised a mind map that narrowed down my decision. Initially I was thinking of the rule of "the golden 3" where I visually represent three concepts I love, then I jotted down what I love and for a sake of simplicity I chose the love of friendship as a focus. I wrote down memories and moments we've had that fortify our relationship and then crossed the ones I deemed unnecessary and created a small treatment with the remainder. Due to my COP research into Yugoslavian avant-garde animation, I wished to experiment with digital pastel brushes to shift the aesthetic and experiment. I spent a day drawing different simple characters in Photoshop based on my iterations of 5 simple-shaped characters in my sketchbook. Spontaneously, as I was animating I was relying on a straight-ahead technique to make things more creative considering this is that kind of a challenge.