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“When a horse falls, foam comes out of it’s mouth. When it falls, the legs of the horse thrash and the horse is no good, so somebody shoots the horse. The horse turns into glue. A machine puts the glue into bottles. Some of the bottles have nipples and the children squeeze the nipples to get the glue out and stick bits of paper onto cards. Glue gets on the children’s hands and the children eat the glue. The children become the horse.”

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“When things happen to people, they radiate a light. Because they’ve got a picture caught inside them. Because they were there and you weren’t. And because you’ve only got a piece. And because all you can do is shrink and blow up that piece.

Until it explodes.”

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“Those eyes. The colour of the sky before it turns black. It wanted to crawl inside those eyes and sit there.

He never talked to the girl. If he ever did, It would faint. Die. Implode. Freeze into a cube. It didn’t care. He made it want to sit in flowers.”

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“He’ll pinch a cigarette between his fingers. He’ll take a drag, blow that drag between his lips. He’ll look at the girl with eyes the colour of the sky before it turns black and he will see heaven, and the pictures of all those other girls floating inside his head will blow away like clouds of the cigarette and he’ll see only the girl inside himself and the world will stop.

Love will whirl through his mind like little tornadoes.”

I’ve decided to create 3 short trailers with 3 different quotes from the book (The Tracey Fragments) all with the same style. The initial footage has been captured and I’ve started putting together the final clips.

Here’s a my first rough test…

…and some alternate experiments with the same footage.

Next step is to add the quote. Not sure yet if it will be in narrative or visual form. Will experiment with both.

1. Title

Forty Below Zerowitz (tentative)

2. Overview

Creation of a series of promo videos for the novel The Tracey Fragments by Maureen Medved. Inspired by quotes from the book that I think capture the essence of the text.

The piece will make use of still frame animation and a “cut and paste” style to communicate the deconstruction and dis-jointed feel of the story.

Currently I’m planning 3 (10-20 second clips). Here are some found images that have a similar collage style and/or quality to what I’m imagining for this piece.

3. Audience

Though the story could appeal to anyone, I feel like the contemporary nature, dry wit and dark humor of the text and subsequent film that was made from it makes it more appealing to a somewhat younger generation – artsy college student to still-hip stay at home Dad?

Technologies

I think the small clips would work better for this novel as it is written in a very broken, confusing and distorted manner. A stop-motion technique will be applied for this project, plus some additional editing in After Effects.

Schedule

April 24th:

* Storyboards & Planning stages complete

*Footage Captured

*Export Frames

*Print Frames

*Gather additional elements/characters

May 2nd:

*Capture still frame animations of the 3 sequences

*Edit frames together

*Begin addition of any digital elements such as textual overlays etc.

May 8th: Post-production completed.

May 15th: Refinement (fixing up). Packaging and presentation begins.

May 22nd: Packaging and presentation.

Deliverables

Final movie posted to blog & hardcopy submitted on DVD.

So in the end I went with a continuous linear progression of movement rather than the View Master “snapshot” style.

The element of “Ten” here is subtle – I don’t think that anyone would really know, unless they were told, that it begins at 10 Bathurst Street and ends at 10 King Street. “Ten” is more of an inspiration here than an integral part of the story.

For me this project was all about making connections between seemingly disparate elements and so I needed to create a narrative that would enhance this idea. Therefore the quirky, and at times nonsensical, interactions between characters serve to seamlessly weave together their environment.

Stylistically the silhouettes, the text replacing dialogue, the jerky movement and the grainy “old film” texture coupled with the sound of an old street organ-grinder generates a nostalgic quality, while the bold contrasts of black, white and yellow bring it back to the present.

1. Title

Forty Below Zerowitz (tentative)

2. Overview

Creation of a promo video for the novel The Tracey Fragments by Maureen Medved. Inspired by a quote from the book which I think captures the essence of the text, the piece will make use of still frame animation and a “cut and paste” style to communicate the deconstruction and dis-jointed feel of the story.

3. Audience

Though the story could appeal to anyone, I feel like the contemporary nature, dry wit and dark humor of the text and subsequent film that was made from it makes it more appealing to a somewhat younger generation – artsy college student to still-hip stay at home Dad?

Technologies

I’m still debating on whether to make one video or a series of small clips, I think the small clips would work better for this novel as it is written in a very broken, confusing and distorted manner.

Schedule

April 9th – 17th: Pre-production & Production Completed.

April 24th: Post-production in progress.

May 2nd: Post-production completed.

May 8th: Post-production completed. (hopefully for grad show…?)

May 15th: Refinement (fixing up). Packaging and presentation begins.

May 22nd: Packaging and presentation.

Deliverables

Final movie posted to blog & hardcopy submitted on DVD.

There are 3 concepts based on the two main characters (Bethany and Roger) and a story that the character is writing (Glove Pond) and each concept has 3 parts. They are great examples of how you can capture the essence of the book without re-telling the story by taking essential elements of the narrative and representing them more abstractly to communicate the emotions.

My favourite of the three is the “stop-motion staples” concept for the character Bethany.