As I knew I was going to be very busy with the Debbie edit, I wanted to make sure the animation for Anxiety Dance would have sufficient attention. To assist Shahid with animating the branches, I created a (very loose) instruction manual that included everything I wanted to achieve from the animation, alongside diagrams and descriptions that I drew in Photoshop of how I envisioned the branches' movement and style. Although, I did make it clear that this was only for Shahid to follow as a rough guide, and if he figured in the process that things worked better done in a different way, I was happy for him to make those changes. Here are my descriptions : 

The animation still took a lot longer than expected, and as I hadn’t scheduled in that I would be animating for Qualia, some time from Through the Medium got taken away unfortunately, which pushed us back quite a bit after final edit was finished. It was also a race to get a rough version of the branches done for Lucy in order to do the sound design for the piece, which added quite a lot of stress. However, I’m glad that the situation did occur, as now my confidence has grown a lot in using software such as After Effects.

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Inframen is a series of portraits using an infrared technique that reveals blemishes that lie under a dancer's abused skin such as scars and sun damage. The photographic process strips away the dancers' outer shell, exposing hidden flaws - the surface of the skin becomes a metaphor for the dancer's inferiority. It represents the relationship between the strength of the body and the fragility of the soul while using male dancers subverts the heteronormative idea of emotionally suppressed masculinity. 

"I use this infrared technique to challenge the model's beauty and find a great intimacy. You are seeing what is already there but it reveals and emphasises these marks."

I think this is a great inspiration for looking at male dancers and challenging the male stereotype. In Inframen we can see that despite their beauty and strength, there are flaws underneath and that everyone has them. This relates back to our film to try and subvert the idea of men always being these strong, fearless characters that are meant to protect, and in reality are just as susceptible to "flaws" as women, despite that this may be seen to be overlooked. 

After our brief tutorial with Kathleen we discussed about what gender we wanted the dancer to be and how this would effect what we are trying to say with the piece. We thought how it would be interesting to use a male dancer as a subversion of stereotypes. I wrote this brief summary to outline the new idea for the film : 

A 5 minute contemporary dance film featuring a young man, aiming to explore and challenge the male stereotype of having strong, fearless characteristics by contrasting with a quivering wreck. The choreography is based around an analysis of anxious states and the movements they create, their exaggerated sounds creating a sort of rhythm. This will be done through the use of live action and animation, in which the dance represents fear and panic, while the animated branches reflect pressure and problems, ultimately closing in on the dancer. 

I also came up with a revised mood board, as previously the focus was very much on women, while now we want to concentrate on men and how they can be viewed through the camera. 

Stylistically we still want the visuals to be black and white, consisting of a light grey background. This is so we can contrast with the much darker vines and branches. 

I created a rough shot list to gain a first idea of what the film may look like and the kind of visuals we might want to gain from it. I separated the detailed movement within the piece into three categories, Animation Description, Camera Movement and Dancer Description, to try and give a clearer idea of what is occurring, especially to the individual roles such as the animator and camera operator. It also made it easier for me to suggest things within each category without becoming muddled. Due to the nature of the piece and how we want to collaborate with the dancer, the descriptions will most likely change through the development of the dance, however I feel it's best to have a solid starting point from which we can all discuss from. 

I gave this shot list to our storyboard-ist Shahid in order to carry out a rough, visual transcript of the film that we have developed so far and then I compiled everything together in a template.

How anxiety displays itself between person to person is very different - panic attacks can occur out of nowhere or certain thoughts or events can trigger nervousness. The one thing that is commonly found is a "persistent or severe fear or worry in situations where most people wouldn't feel threat." 

I found key words from the symptoms listed that could help us establish movements with the dancer:

Emotional Symptoms 

• A feeling that something bad / unpleasant will occur
• Loss of concentration
• Tensing up and feeling jumpy
• The expectation of the worst possible scenario
• Feeling irritable 
• Restlessness
• Mind blanks

I came up with an idea in second year for maps and journeys, before joining "The Brain" group, and decided not to do it due to lack of confidence and not really sure where to take it in terms of visuals. 

My original idea was a dance film based around the idea of anxiety movements, with exaggerated sounds from the movements themselves creating a sort of rhythm.  The focus would not be so much on how the dancer looks, keeping her/ him ambiguous, but on how body parts such as hands contort, move and react when a person is feeling anxious. I wanted the audience to feel more tension as the piece went a long, making the rhythm faster, the sounds amplified and the cuts quicker, reflecting the build up someone feels anxiously. 

This was quite a personal piece to me as it's something I suffer a lot from in every aspect of life, but it's not something I talk about very much and seem to hide how I'm feeling a lot. The idea came to me when we were put under pressure last year to say our ideas to the class, and as it travelled around the circle until my turn, I noticed how interesting and uncontrollable my movements were. Things like shivering, tapping my feet on the floor, squeezing my hands together to the point where they were sore...I thought it might make quite a nice movement based piece. I'm aware anxiety is a universal thing, and a lot of people get it to some degree, so I was hoping the piece would be relatable, as well as personal. 

After re-presenting it this year as an idea I didn't really think would actually develop any more, I began talking to Laura about it as she was pitching and interested in something similar. She showed me this video, the music video for Stromae's Quand C'est : 

The video represents the struggles of a cancer patient, with the idea that cancer can sneak up at any time. The title of the song, Quand C'est emphasises this, as with the correct pronunciation can sound like "cancer" without even realising it.  

We really liked the claw like projections used in the video and the way they interact with the dancer and Laura suggested incorporating this in our film. Tree branches and vines would weave in, possibly restricting her movement more and more and enclose the space, adding claustrophobia. I want the film to go in a similar style to the original idea, focussing on the gestures associated with anxiety,  but with also having this over-looming thing (the trees) gaining more control - the thing the performer is anxious about. In real life this can just represent more normal things, for example the knowledge that I'd have to say my idea out loud to the class that day. The trees are basically the problem the dancer is facing. 

However this is something that needs to be discussed and developed more, but I'm very excited about working with a mixture of live action and animation, as I really enjoy the style.