Link: https://wordpress.com/post/rachelgibsonweb.wordpress.com/1608
This is a stop motion animation exploring the themes of storytelling and depression.
The set was made with painted cardboard and clay, and the figures were made with painted polystyrene and pipe-clean wires. The actual animation was filmed on an iPhone 6, a phot-r photography cube and a soft-box light in a dark-room. I used three apps for editing: stop-motion, iMovie and Splice and a video editing softwares: Premier pro and AVS. The process of bringing the animation to life involved intricately setting up each frame and taking a photo. The photos were put together into a type of slide show to give the illusion of movement. I used 5 frames per second, which gives the film a more jittery, homemade feel- intending to make the viewer unsettled. The animation is 3 minutes 5 seconds long, played on a loop. It is displayed on a 40-inch flat-screen TV in a dark room with an eerie soundscape of unsettling music and noises.
The animation starts with my character watching a film (my previous animation I miss you) on her TV. She is scared by it, black paint- like in the film- starts to come down her chimney into her home; when she tries to run she ends up in a fairground, face-to-face with the monster she had been running from. She then falls into the first scene of I miss you and the animation loops. The monster- for me- represents depression, and the black paint sadness, however I wanted this to be interpreted by each individual viewer.
The main concepts behind my work are storytelling and depression. My interest in this generates from a personal standpoint as well as an interest in human psychology. The way that an entire person can be compromised by an illness such as depression, has always fascinated me- and I wanted to portray it in a metaphorical, accessible way. Storytelling has always been a part of my nature, it can be a way to make sense of things as well as entertaining others. Stop motion I found to be an engaging way to tell a story within an art context. I also find the relationship between my idea and the process interesting because of their contrast. Essentially, this piece was made by me playing with dolls, a very childish innocent act- however I was playing out the very adult theme of mental illness.
My main influence was Tim Burton although I had many. I have always admired his unique and twisted style and wanted to harness this. His stop-motion features are not only visually stunning, but they often explore themes of death and loss in a way that seems innocent; almost juvenile- which was the aim of my piece. For example, The Corpse Bride (2005) portrays the underworld as a vibrant place and the living world as a drab place; this way of exploring the concept of death and loss is much different to that I have seen before and I wanted to incorporate it into my own work. Other artists that influenced my making process include Jan Švankmajer, William Kentridge and Don Hertzfeldt. With the influence of these artists and the theme of depression, I have created a stimulating if not slightly disturbing, short stop motion animation.
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