Rough Storyboard

Here is my rough storyboard for the sequence of events within the animation. 

The initial shot is setting the scene of a watercolourish forest within the heart of night. We find the lost Emmet travelling a beaten path, looking beaten herself untill she rests at a river. She looks sad within her waters reflection, and a nearby glowworm takes notice of her crying and sadness. The Glow worm emerges, having slept, to find out what's wrong. The glow-worm listens to her tale and in the reflection of the water we see her sad children and their sighing father. The Glow worm thinks to itself before making a ball of light and casting it into the air. As it ascends, it shines and explodes into a beetle. The light also ignites all the lanterns on the trees, lighting a path for the Emmet. The glow worm tells the Emmet to follow the Beetle home and the path, leading to the fading credits of the animation.

The Animation style

The Animation syle is going to attend a fairy tail style of whimsical nature. Child-like and fairy tail-esque.  I have changed the style from my initial scribbles and drabbles of early concepts, into a more watercolour and crayon style of lines.  The above example is of that style, and with an idea i have in mind.

The idea of the display of the animation is that the little girl, our narrator, is a continuous presence on the screen.

She will sit in the bottom right corner upon a toadstool. As the animation changes behind her, the girl would turn a page. Perhaps if  a character approaches her she would change direction with her head to face them also.

Above is a rough mock up of how the animation layout would look. A floral fairy tail border of leaves to match both the nature of William Blakes poems and their essence of innocence and nature and the style of childish stories. The font mimics this style also.

Designing the Characters

Characters within the poem are the:

The Emmet -

The Emmet with the poem is a lost mother ant. She is forlorn and lamenting at her being lost form her family. She looks travel worn and sad. Her goal throughout the poem is to find her way back to her family. She speaks of being able to hear her children wonder and see their father sigh.

Above is some initially rough doodles of the 'Emmet'. I am going with  a simplistic, childish appeal to the characters and designs.

Here is the finalised, simple, Ant design. Simple colours to contrast and simple design to animate.

The Glow worm -

The glow worm appears to the Emmet and the Narrator as the stories mentor and guide. He is said to 'light the path' and guides the Emmet to the Beetle, to follow his hum home.

Here is the glow worm idea. A simple, round, cute "Glow worm" who sits on a lamp. He lights the way with his lantern, lighting the lanterns in the trees to guide the way home.

The Beetle -

The Beetle appears at the end of the poem. He hums and is said to guide the Emmet home, this hum is presumably from his wing beats. The poem speaks that the beetle 'goes his round' so presumably loops or goes within a continuous loop or cycle.

A simplistic beetle who specialises in green for his colour. He is bulkier than the ant but still very simplified.

The Narrator -

The Narrator is like the reader and author of the story. The Narrator starts on a bed of grass and follows the Emmet, shedding a tear in sympathy. At some point the narrator disappears temporary in the poem as the focus becomes on the Emmet's plight.

For this animation, i have personified the narrator as a little innocent girl. A white and yellow dress symbolises her purity, and her brown hair helps add contrast between the colours and is associated with earth and nature.

Defining a Style

William Blake's artwork normally depicted the natural world. Forms had natural contours and that which would be depicted was often abstract and related to faith. As with "A Dream", the Poem is illustrated by golden vines and green leaves. The background is a water colour wash of night bue, with dabs of golden stars. At the bottem right of the page, we can view the white image of a man, whom we can presume is that watchmen of the night, perhaps "God", the glow-worm or even the traveller, the narrator. 

Again, a natural, branch motif.

Much of William's artwork presented visual metaphors within its imagery. Depictions of splendour and faith, such as the one above of a spirally white staircase.

His art expressed his inner thoughts and perceptions, unconformed to the logical, strict approach at the time artwork was expected of.



And almost always depicted the struggles or challenges of man; the nature of the human spirit through various interpretations.



And the darker side, such as the "Experience" he depicted in his volumes, such as this depiction of Eve and her deception at the serpent's command.



The general vibe and feel of the animation should feel naive and childish but perhaps with a dark undertone of the night.

Looking at some animations with childish, simple and naive concepts is "Angst". This animation uses a monotone colour pallet of blacks, whites and greys which help illuminate the lights and make the shadows higher in contrast and more dynamic. It is a traditional animation with a simple story of a poor boy growing up being harassed by the wind and later contracting a phobia to it. Perhaps the visual metaphor is that there is good and bad, a black and white to the wind and perhaps the boys opinion of the wind too. The message and situation of the story of the animation is clear, using some suspension of disbelief, such as floating down on washing line clothes.

Another bizarre animation that takes a simple concept of animation and simply explores it.

Understanding William Blake

William Blake, born 28 November 1757 - 12 August 1827, was an English poet. Though highly regarded now, during his lifetime he was mostly unrecognised. His work is fresh, original and innocent - reflected in his two complete volumes of "Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience". Within these volumes detail his unforgettable poems, which delve profoundly into the in sighting world of human nature. Though on the outside of their skin they appear simplistic and nursery - they are an up most intriguing piece social probing.

Blake himself led a life in London although he was born in Soho, as the son of a hosier. Here he would write by the Thames and recite his tales. Blake would often speak of his "visionary imaginations", as throughout his life he would see magnificent splendour; one such being a claim to have seen God outside his window as a child, and angels around the treetops. Although such  claims would be shot down, and he himself labelled and regarded as a mad man, these spurts of vividly illusions would clearly influence and inspire his poetry and art, such as engraved illustrations of mythological beings and later explorations of faith within his works.

Unfortunately at the time, a career in art was highly expensive, costly and unable to sustain a man such as Blake. Throughout his life he lived through poverty, struggling with what little he could earn through engraving. He married an illiterate woman named Catherine Boucher, whom he taught to read and write. Catherine would help Blake to print his poetry, and they ventured into hosting their own print shop too, although this later failed. William even tried to teach his younger brother, Robert his skills in artistry, but he fell ill and passed during the winter of 1787, and Blake believed to have seen his soul clapping with joy, leave his body to ascend.

Despite such a tough living style, William continued with his work, nonconforming to others and thinking as he would, believing imagination was a privilege over the conformed views of others. He believed that with imagination over reason, such as his poetry and images, these ideal forms should be constructed not from what we perceive around us by from our inner visions. As to quote from one of his poems:



Blake believed to think freely and be able to express ones self. Art itself during such a time as he was in, was only used for practical purposes - such as highly realistic depictions of portraiture or coats of arms depictions. Art had no abstract purpose. But for Blake, he believed that people should not be conformed or enslaved by this social tyranny, and be able to break free from such oppressive rules and express the inner "you". His passion for poetry drove Blake to even self teach Latin, Hebrew, Greek and Italian to read poems in their original native language.  With this as inspiration alongside his profound spiritual insights and visions, Blake would move onto create his most mature works which would explore a high kind of innocence, the human spirit over solid reason and logicality.

Blake aimed for his work, his poetry, to be read by the common people and was no prepared to sacrifice his vision, his essence of his work for the sake of popularity; that was against what he stood for. Though some perceived some of his water colour pieces as "hideous", and he the artist as "insane", some praised his pieces for their bold step. His poetry on the other hand was not very well known to the general people. A fair few regarded his poetry, and called him a "Man of genuis", but this praise would not earn him much favor as he still lived out the remainder of his life in poverty. Regardless during these final years, Blake was supported by a younger group of artists who called themselves "The Ancients". One of these artists managed to help Blake financially and raise interest in his work, allowing him to illustrate commissions until his death in 1827.




William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" are sets of illustrated poems which spiral around the cotrary states of the human soul. "Innocence" and "Experience" define these two states of consciousness which takes the concepts of John Milton's of "Paradise" and "Fall" What we can take from this is that "Innocence" is a protected state of childhood, safe from original sin. This ancestral or original sin refers to the "fall of man" sin. Such sin can be anything form mere deception, guilt, and is usually associated with the Adam and Eve tale. The "Experience" later falls into events that are experienced, corrupting "innocence", such as political corruption, social tyranny and the oppression of the ruling classes.



"A Dream" is a poem with the Songs of Innocence volume, published in 1789. The poem emphasizes aspects of innocence, and sports a coherent theme of harmony and rhythm. The characters within the poem are helpful and friendly, although vaguely detailed - thus adding to the innocence depiction of the setting. Our main character, the "Emmet", is an ant. "Emmet" itself is the archaic word for "Ant." Alongside the Emmet we have the Narrator, whom we can assume is Blake, the glow-worm and the beetle. The Poem begins with narrator meeting the lost ant and listening to her laments of separation from her children back home. Next, the glow-worm listens in and is said to "set to light the ground" which we can assume is to help and guide the lost Emmet home, instructing her to follow the beetle. Whilst the nature of the poem is innocence, naive and light - the Emmet's fear of what surrounds it could also tie in with "experience" as from her damaged, tired and worn appearance it must have had several hardships, including separation as mentioned in the dream from its family.

This act of personification and sympathy with an insect, is a broadened sense of sympathy and innocence, as generally children can sympathising with anything - even inanimate objects such as stuffed animals.  We can even draw fro "A Dream" several underlying themes such as a sense of imperfection with all the characters present, as everyone needs help. The Emmet needs to e comforted by the narrator, needs to be rescued by the glow-worm and guided back home by the beetle. Not only that but "A Dream" appears to challenge the stereotypical structure of the middle class family. Instead of an absent father returning home to his waiting children and wife, it is the maternal mother instead trying to find her way home.

The Poem smells of a strong, organic presence of the natural world. Guidance and protection lean in within this poem to this lost innocence, within its abstract presentation. We can interpretate the opening line of Blake's bed, his angels, as the guardians of innocence or even of his. This may also refer to sleeping and the act of dreaming as the highest point of innocence, where imagination is at its biggest and best. A waking Blake to a bed of grass and a lost ant is a loose and innocent subject of the dream too. Another possible interpretation i have of the ant, is its struggle to return to its lost innocence with its hardships of experience. That this experience is fighting over "many a tangled spray". Rather than Blake presenting this experience as adult wisdom, he instead presents it as a burdened struggle, especially for the adult ant to return to what it has now lost. The author empathises with the lost ant with his drop of tear, universal emotions through  a universal nature - that all is one - and all is close. Perhaps this is why the ant, is the subject of empathy of the Poem, as even a creature as small and perhaps, perceived as insignificant is just as important and on par with the purpose of man as we are all a part of a wheel of nature we can not deny. As the night darkens and the ant hears her children, the glow-worm becomes a now symbol of guidance, perhaps, a metaphor of God. The glow-worm paves a lit ground to cast away the dark and light the way to the beetle and his hum, to guide the "little wanderer" home.

Blake's vision of nature is also conveyed through the poem within its visual imagery. As an engraver and artist, Blake was able to decorate his words as if flower heads growing from a thicket. Vines weave through borders, perhaps illustrating the complex and woven nature of man. Perhaps the nature decorating the poetry is its natural guardian, guarding the innocence of his work. Perhaps it was up to God to reunite the maternal relationship of mother ant and mother child. The mother struggles to find her way home - and the father ant sits at home and sighs - leaving God to guide the lost soul home when needed most.

Poem Criteria

Scenario

You have been asked to bring poetry to a wider audience by setting a poem that you

will be given to music and by making the meaning of a poem very clear using

animation.

You may integrate any type of animation (drawn, 2D digital, 3D, stop-frame, rostrum

camera) into your piece.

The minimum duration of the animated poem is 1 minute.

Tasks

1 – Key to animating the poem is to thoroughly understand it. Re-write the poem, breaking

the lines to add pauses and emphasis, state arc of poem & most important line. Research

the poet. Research into when, where and why the poem was written. Document all of this in

your digital sketchbook.

2 – Mood & palette; define the mood of poem visually with colour. The text must dominate &

be legible throughout. Use just one font and justify your choice of font. For consistency use

no more than 3 sizes of text and no more than 5 baselines for the text to sit on. Create

backgrounds for poem that allow the text to be dominant. Document all of this in your digital

sketchbook.

3 – Ensure that your animation will show the text at a readable pace by creating a rough cut;

edit the shortened static lines to music that you choose. Allow time for animating the static

frames of text in the rough cut on and off in the final animation. Upload your rough cut to

Google Drive, paste the link into your digital sketchbook.

4 – To transition between the lines of poetry test at least 10 styles of animation on the most

important line (e.g. slide in vertically & blur off with dissolve = 1 style). Test effects such as

the stencil effect, textures, glows, layer effects and integrating stop-frame animation

backgrounds and wipes into your poem. Choose a maximum of 4 different styles to use

throughout the poem. Document all of this with screenshots in your digital sketchbook.

5 - In the final animation use a maximum of 5 different animation styles. Fine-tune the timing

of the text on screen when the transitions are in place. Adjust your work according to the

feedback given in session and complete the final animation. State your design rules and

illustrate these with a minimum of 10 images from your final animation. Upload your

animation to Google Drive, paste the link into your digital sketchbook. In your digital

sketchbook clearly state your design rules and illustrate with at least 10 images from your

final animation. Document adjusting your final animation in line with feedback with

screenshots in your digital sketchbook.

6 – Your digital sketchbook is pivotal to your grade. It should clearly demonstrate that you

have followed the taught design process and how much effort you have put into your work. It

will be sub-divided using these headings: the Meaning of the Poem, Colour Research,

Developing a Style, Response to Feedback at Presentation, Design Rules. Reference the

Music that you use.

Uploaded to the coursework Teachmat page for CINE1025:

The digital sketchbook as pdf MAXIMUM FILE SIZE 20mb

Use Harvard referencing throughout for anything that you have not created; this includes

audio and reference images and video.

Uploaded to Google Drive by the deadline date and links pasted in the pdf:

1. The Rough Cut

2. The final animation

Poem to animate:

A Dream

Once a dream did weave a shade

O'er my angel-guarded bed,

That an emmet lost its way

Where on grass methought I lay.

Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,

Dark, benighted, travel-worn,

Over many a tangle spray,

All heart-broke, I heard her say:

'Oh my children! do they cry,

Do they hear their father sigh?

Now they look abroad to see,

Now return and weep for me.'

Pitying, I dropped a tear:

But I saw a glow-worm near,

Who replied, 'What wailing wight

Calls the watchman of the night?

'I am set to light the ground,

While the beetle goes his round:

Follow now the beetle's hum;

Little wanderer, hie thee home!'

By William Blake