Beginning of the end.

I have finally navigated my way through two very intense terms of learning and am now embarking on the final term to complete my Pg Diploma in Character Animation here at Central Saint Martins. During this final chapter, we are required to individually create an animation inspired by a painting found in the National Gallery's extensive collection in London. The films must be at least 1 minute duration and after a premiere screening at the National Gallery in September, they will be later showcased on the National Gallery's website.

I have both been really excited and terrified at the thought of this project, knowing that every moment of learning leading up to this point would need to be perfected, to be able to handle the challenges I am about to face.

Since starting the course, I visited the National Gallery countless times, managing to find an array of inspiring paintings - it seemed the choice was endless. Although there was one painting that I had always felt drawn to, long before I knew about this brief or course for that matter!

Frans Hal's Young Man holding a Skull (Vanitas), has been a painting I've long enjoyed. Not lest for the energised brushstrokes and animated pose of the young sitter. But, it is the engaging way that the Dutch concept of Vanitas had been interpreted by Hals, by breaking conventions of the time, which really blew me away. I aim to take his interpretation of the 'transience of life' further and reflect it in a modern day context.

The character of my story is a professional business woman in her 20's, steadily climbing the business ladder, with little time to spare. In the way that Hals uses a cyclical motion to convey a passing of time, I also wanted to use same motion in my animation, to depict a narrow, repetitiveness, in an attempt prompt people to think about how they are passing their own time and demonstrate how it can pass before one's eyes without noticing.

After developing the character through drawings and delving into her mindset through the 'Seven Questions of Character', I began drawing thumbnail sketches and developing scenes. After discussing my ides with my tutors and fellow classmates, paired with a good portion of self evaluation, I edited my rough thumbnails together with makeshift sounds to create a final working animatic. Unfortunately I didn't have time for colour treatment or cleaning up the drawings, but in the end the most important thing was that the story came across clearly.

Below is the initial animatic that was presented last Friday, where I received some really valuable feedback on how the story was translating to a wider audience. This feedback lead me to rethink and revise the train scene for the animatic, as it seemed that it altered her character, from being someone who was busy and remotely aware that she is 'missing out on life around her', to being an annoying person on the train.

So I went back to the drawing board and decided to have her reading a book instead, to represent her escaping into a moment of peace, only to be jerked out again by her phone. However, after replacing a few of the rough thumnails and putting them into a revised animatic (below), upon further discussion and reflection, I realised that this didn't quite gel with her character - being a busy business woman choosing to read a novel on the train, when she could be spending time on her work. I am in the midst of revising this scene, with the intention to repost the revised and very final animatic in the coming days.