Silent Movie_Unit 1 Practice based research

Intro

Silent Movies were an important part of my childhood. will never forget the memory of turning on the TV and watching a silent movie made by Shanghai Animation Film Studio on a Saturday morning while my mom was on her way to work and my grandma was preparing breakfast for me. I also had a lot of CDs about Warner Bros’. I didn’t know what a silent movie was. I was simply captivated by those wonderful works that combined animation and music beautifully.

Make Reference

At first, I drew my keyframes as shown below.

After showing these keyframes to Chris, he told me that I could make the character’s body movements more dramatic to enhance the emotional intensity. So I recorded a dramatic video reference. (Thank you, Joseph, for teaching me how to perform, and sorry, but I don’t want to show my face or my room)

After showing the reference to Chris, he thought I would make progress by using it.

Perspective

However, another problem arose. Since I set the whole scene in front of a peephole, expressing and drawing it became a challenge. Chris advised me to add a few seconds showing a finger covering the peephole and then moving away. But figuring out how to draw the perspective still bothered me. Luckily, Vanessa taught us everything about perspective!

After two weeks of hard work, I finished the first version of my silent movie.

Make my character move naturally

I love my work very much, but I know I still have a lot of things to change. I sent an email to Ko and asked for her advice.

• The viewer’s finger with the hole works well, but I recommend adding two more drawings to create a boiling loop (fingers only), so it doesn’t appear as a still image. Since this part has a hand-drawn texture, keeping it static can make it look unfinished or stiff.
• At the beginning, when the character is knocking on the door, consider adding some follow-through with the head, hair, or upper body. Adding anticipation with the body or head before knocking could also enhance the movement.
• At 5 seconds, when the character moves their head to look through the hole, add a big anticipation before they move forward.(even blinking the eyes can be)
• When the character places both hands on the hole and sticks out their tongue, add a big anticipation before the tongue movement. This could be a blink or a head movement with the hair following through.
• Overall, the character’s big hair has the potential for soft, flowing movements that follow through with any body actions. Right now, the hair feels too stiff compared to its visual style. Consider adding follow-through to the hair throughout, based on the body’s movements.

That’s when I realised my mistake. First, when my right hand knocks on the door, my body slightly turns to the left. I didn’t realize this because they were such small movements. If my classmate Yidi and Ko hadn’t told me, I probably would have never noticed. Second, my character should have a preparatory movement before making a big movement to prepare the audience. Last, anticipation is important!

This is my work, Knock Knock.