"Locked In" Animated Charcoal-Drawn Short Film

Here is animation which i worked on with two other animators clare and richard, directed with whom the idea came from which was the first time to be directed, also use the William Kentridge's technique (replacing a charcoal sketch by rubber then put in movement on top by charcing over the same spot).

After suffering a stroke six years ago, Tony Nicklinson was left paralysed from the neck down and unable to speak. His condition is known as ‘Locked-In Syndrome’ and now, after years of frustrating helplessness, he wants to die. 

This film was inspired by the true story of Tony Nicklinson, and created using William Kentridge's charcoal erasure animation technique, for a final University project

Slides for Pre-Production in specialist study.

Kolb cycle and shedule for AOP and Pre-Production

Shedule for Area of Practice and Pre-Production

My own Kolb cycle

Parapalegic Animatic.

This is the final animatic taken from images which we used to put each scene together and get how long each scene was to last, the animatic changed various times but the biggest change was the end with re-iterating the same point over and over again about his state, to get the viewer annoyed to get the feeling that he gets everyday. 

Behind the scenes Karina's animation in production

First we realised that there would be two people animating their scenes while one person is putting together the scenes to be done ready to animate.Lucky to have two rostums to use to hold to camera while animating.Here shows an image of myself animating with the camera above and the clicker to take each shot but always making sure the shadows don't come into play. I really enjoyed this type of animating withe the materials and style always having to think of how the end shot is going to look to measure how many frames between much like when animating in 2d.

These two shots are richard posing for my hand moving the spoon in the shot to reference.

A shot from the view from the camera

All together discussing how Karina wants the shots and sorting how long for each scene while looking at the storyboards.

The process of drawing over then taking the picture which is done over and over for 12 frames a second.

 Clare animating a bird scene in siluettes.

One of the storyboard sheets which we used to animate from and reference to get how the shots were going to look.

The shots before animating 

Then coming down to another scene which Richard was animating skydiving again the same as the bird we decide it would look best if it was done in the siluette style. Referencing for the shot this is a pose for how the skydiver would look for the angle just rotated.

Research into the William Kendridge approach.

The third year that i have worked with has chosen to use this approach for her final animation mainly because of the story type being dark anyway it suits this media very well and as there were various problems when coming to production and because of the nature of the technique myself,Richard and Clare  helped to animate scenes to put together having our third year Karina as our director.

   The approach to using the charcoal to the paper the rubbing off what your are going to animate to change the position has interested be before because of the natural look of the final animation and so i was happy to help and learn along the way while being in a team helped to discuss how each scene was going to look and move using tests and poses along the way.

First a beautiful piece by William Kendridge i particually like the detail in the movement of the paper at the start.

Work by south african artist William Kentrigde from 1994. Kentrigde uses charcoal and pastels for his drawings in which he erases and redraws parts to create stop motion style animations.

also this isn't William Kendridge but its using the same style of draw and rubb out, the piece is keeping it simple by just focusing of the face but it works really well because it shows is life in ageing and shows this style at it's best.

Music icons like Mick Jagger also use animation in their music videos showing a likeness to the technique in this video but they seem to re draw where there was something you'll understand when you watch.

Slides for area of practice presentation.

presenting and selling ourselves to the L6 (3rd year) group to work on over next term.