concept artwork

1st draft animatic.

Storyboard:

1. zoom into boy's eye to show tower.

2. bird lands on tower. cut to CU of hands rolling a fag.

3. zoom out to see man on bench. bird flies through smoke, into new scene.

4. bird flies over sea.  360 pan round giant octopus

- eats bird.

5. zoom out, sea in teacup, woman drinks tea, man comes in-

both look at boy in corner.

6. boy turns into bird

7. bird flies round room, into checkerboard floor, 

turns into country landscape

8. bird lands on tower, 360 pan round to sunset

I like the pencil line-quality (...but not enough black!) I still want to work on each frame with graphic pen, and also add some subdued colors into it. So maybe coloring it on computer then printing each frame out to work on with pen. 

The film revolves around 3 central characters, man, woman, and child. It is tempting to assign the labels of id, super-ego, and ego, respectively. It is in their combined interaction they are intended, as a metaphor for a mind of conflicting and tangled emotions. I am influenced by the zen approach, in trying to describe the undescribable through paradox.  The visual metamorphoses between scenes, the surreality of the narrative, and the universality of the symbolism hopefully invite the viewer to read this film in a counter-intuitive way to standard film context.

The intention behind juxtapostion of events in the narrative, and the animation style itself, is to place emphasis on the awareness of the present moment, and the dream-like nature of the past. The camera rotating round the object is identified with dreams, storybooks, and the past - whereas the points when the camera follows a more conventional film-style are identified with the real world, and the present moment. When the camera is rotating, the direction it takes is intentional - the moment it reverses direction frames the climatic moment.

The focus on upon hand gesture is important - there is an intended symmetry between the man rolling and smoking a cigarette, and the woman stirring and drinking her tea, a window into their inner selves. The bird is implied as a metaphor for the child, and this is made more explicit by the ending - the loss of the bird, the empty corner.  It is through the interaction of the bird-child metaphor with the object symbols of a cigarette/cup of tea, that the films overt meaning is understood.