FMP: Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou (1929) screen shot

Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí was a really helpful film to watch. The experience allowed me to form a clearer idea of the sort of animation I want to produce, in regards to how it is received by the view. Not only do I want it to be an experience that the viewer embarks on, but also a cause of disturbance and discomfort... something that someone would want to escape from. This short film was constructed through a combination of the artists dreams manifest content and that of random sense ideas that seemed to fit well between them both. I now I'm pondering on how I am going to build up my story board. Will it be a sort of montage of my manifest content, will it be a similar process to the making of Un Chien Andalou or could I take a completely different direction?

FMP: Dream Psychology Research

Dream psychology research in my sketch book

Authors own

Of course, I had to research Freudian theory as it influenced so much art and is the most outrageous, common knowledge theory for dream analysis. Carl Gustav Jung's dramatic structure theory proved to be very helpful to my particular media of choice (animation), as it provided a rough outline of the structure of dreams and which section of the dream is most important. This could be something for me to consider when generating storyboards. Another thing that caught my attention was a quote by Sigmund Freud:

"Dreams are the Royal Road to the Unconscious."  

This quote generated strong imagery for me and it could be a potential component to my final storyboard. The "Royal Road" could be an effective symbolic device that insinuates an entrance or exit of the unconscious.  

FMP: Dream Logging Research

Series of screen shots taken from the short film Destino (2003) by Salvador Dalí (surrealist) and Walt Disney (animator). 

Merz by Kurt Schwitters (dadaist) 

Photo's are not authors own

I have looked into some of the artists that participated in the Surreal and Dada art movements. This stage of my research has opened a lot of doors into how I can represent the themes I am working with, which are dream state, lucidity and escapism. Dalí has worked a lot with the manifest content of his dreams, along side other surrealists like Vladimir Kush and Georgio De Chirico. Destino, which is fundamentally a montage of Dalí's previous paintings, creates a strong example of how a dream may play out in ones mind, therefore I took substantial amounts of inspiration from it. Moving on from this research I won't to produce a series of observational/life drawings that I will then manipulate in a slightly surrealist/dadaist manner. Dadaism was quite a hard art movement to grasp, but I suppose that is the whole point. This kind of, nonsensical, "do whatever you like" approach that seems to be the foundations of the movement correlates very well with the lucid state of dreaming, where the dreamer is conscious of the fact that they are still asleep and, through mental discipline, can proceed to change their dream environment and situation.  

Freedom & Liberty: Research and Concept

Research into Freedom & Liberty, including definitions (authors own)

Screen shot of freedom (google search)

Olympics: Black Power Salute (right to left: John Carlos, Tommie Smith and Peter Norman)

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/30/black-power-salute-1968-olympics

For this project I aim to make a short animated piece that communicates something about Freedom and Liberty, and what it means to me. I started my research, looking into dictionary definitions of the terms and then diversified my sources onto the world wide web and that of other peoples opinions on the matter. I then watched documentaries and films such as, The Naked Rambler, that explores others opinions on what freedom is, in this case to be publicly nude without being antagonised. I also watched the films, The Truman Show and Bruce Almighty (both staring Jim Carey). I found something very interesting being said in Bruce Almighty, which was about the idea of playing God and the limits to that power. We as humans all have free will, we make our own decisions and choose our own paths. This can be manipulated by those around us, but ultimately it is our choice (unless you believe in destiny). However, in animation an animator has the job of playing God and the poor character has absolutely no free will. In continuing this project I will work with the concept of free will.

I then looked into historical revolutions, such as the black power movement and freedom fighters. I found it to be rich in potential visual metaphors. The black panther could be a great visual metaphor for me to play with, as well as the salute (seen above) . Oppressed, black people were almost completely without freedom, but the Black Panther movement was them using their free will to make a difference. Just like them, I want my character to fight back.