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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 thought as the production is giving a life to the characters, that I'd do the descriptions in an interesting, related manner - giving them mock interviews as if they are publicizing "Through the Medium" as the actors. This allows a further reflection of the medium, as they are essentially having a mini, even more realistic interview, about their role in our film in which they are interviewed about life on set. I feel their answers give a bit more away about their characters and attitudes, particularly to those who haven't seen the script. It serves as kind of a written teaser to our film. We thought this would be useful to put on fundraising sites, publicity pages and even as flyers to put up / hand out, as it is quite a fun part that plays off the rest of the entire work. Even if we don't use it as something public in the end, it's useful for us to look at to make sure we know as much about the characters as possible (their back story) to assist in putting their lives into their models in the best possible way.  Once the article was written, we turned it into a magazine style design and layout to add a bit more of a realistic interview vibe, that can be seen below, in the fake magazine Animation Nation : 

Clay was born on the 22nd July 2015. From a very early age, Clay was handled with a lot of love and care by his creators assembled with the most delicate of touches. After initial problems with his balance, requiring assistance to stand alone to prevent toppling over, he established a close bond with his human animator counterparts who he relied and worked with to rectify the problem into a more stable condition. He became a popular character within the workshop, and as a result grew to be a very social and friendly being. Clay considers himself to be a professional actor and takes his roles very seriously, however he always has time to hang out and have fun with the rest of the crew on breaks. Despite never gloating, if questioned, he will quietly confess his dreams of one day being the first animated character to attend the Oscars.

Here is a brief interview with Clay to get to know him better before the release of "Through The Medium."

Interviewer : How would you describe yourself? 

Clay : ...Oh...tough question! Mmmm...let me think. I'd say I'm a pretty patient character *chuckles* 

Interviewer : *chuckles* Well you'd have to be! 

Clay : Yeah definitely! It's a massive part of the job I'd say. I like to think I'm pretty chilled, the key to establishing a good work ethic is just to be friendly and have fun with the job. It's nice being able to have a few laughs every once in awhile with these guys *points towards film crew*

Interviewer :  Sounds like you have a lot of fun on set! Do you bring that into your personal life too? 

Clay : Yeah I would say so. I like to get a bit of socialising in behind the scenes as well, there's perks to working with some of your best friends! Seriously though, it is important to take a lot of breaks throughout production, especially when you're standing all day like I am. It's essential I get my stretching exercises in - it's part of the risk assessment! Off set I also enjoy watching a lot of films to draw some inspiration into my performances, although to be fair I like to incorporate a lot of my own style into the roles as well. 

Interviewer : What do you think of "Through the Medium"?

Clay : I really love the concept of the entire film. I feel like a lot of the time animated character's voices get lost in amongst the rest of the behind the scenes footage and it can get really frustrating, especially after all the hard work put in to make the performance good. I'm really hoping the film will provide the audience with some new knowledge of what it's like to be an animated character on set, working in adverse conditions when you're only a few inches tall and gain a new perspective on the film making life from a different angle. 

Interviewer : Rating out 10?

Clay : Do you even have to ask? *chuckles* 

Chip was born on the 20th of July 2015. In early stages of development, Chip had a rather unfortunate scenario with the so - called evil "Cursor" that left him muscle-less and nearly ruined his career in looking good for himself - he has lived in fear ever since. Right away Chip knew he was very athletic, and for one little CGI animation he had big dreams - to have the biggest muscles and smoothest surface in the entire of 3D space. Self appearance is a very important part of Chip's life, with around 16 hours spent in his mirror and the other 8 flexing in his sleep. However, various run downs with his Kryptonite, the "Cursor," often leave Chip in awkward situations and interrupt his  self titled flawless physique. Despite life not always going Chip's way, he knows he can always find some solace in his favourite coffee, the triple mocha frappa lacka macha chino latte and even occasionally him and the cursor manage to put aside their differences, showing it's not all tricks and games between them.

We also spent some time getting to know Chip! Here is the interview :

Interviewer : Hey Chip! How are you?

Chip : *Proceeds to fix hair in mirror* ...uuuhhh...I'm...Good...Thanks.

Interviewer : Great to hear! Can you tell the audience a bit about yourself?

Chip : *Immediately puts down mirror* Where do I begin? My favourite element of me has to be my award winning smile *Smirks* although my hair is pretty good too, perfect even! Wouldn't you agree?

Interviewer :  Yeah! Don't forget about those muscles though!

Chip : Oh trust me, I haven't. I've got a solid round of built up polygons. *flexes*

Interviewer : Nice! Do you use those muscles to stop any evil lurking about?

Chip : Mmm...there's not too much evil around here...other than the...the...the...

Interviewer : ...the?

Chip : NOOO! Nothing. Never mind...you'd better be careful or you'll soon find out! And neither of us would want that. The interview would have to be cut short.

Interviewer : Very well... If there's "not too much evil" I'm guessing the universe is a very positive place?

Chip : Definitely! How could a universe with me not be positive! Although the coffee contributes a lot of positivity, especially after a stressful day of running from...stuff...and gives me the energy to keep maintaining these dashing looks you see here.

Interviewer : And lastly can you describe "Through the Medium" to us to get a better sense of what it is about?

Chip : Sure! It's a glorious two hour feature length that delves deep inside the inner workings of my amazing body, displaying the craftsman ship of every chiseled high definition ab, my shiny radiant texture...

Interviewer : ...mmm...it's actually supposed to be a short, documentary....say around 3-5 mins?

Chip : Pfft you're wrong...that's obviously not nearly enough time to take in all of my stupendous action. You'll love it though, it truly is a work of art!

Interviewer : *Chuckles* I look forward to seeing that! Thank you Chip.

My idea for Clay is to have him in warmer colours to represent his more physical, classic nature and relationship to the human world. This includes various tones of red, probably leaning more towards the mid-darker shades. Subtle hints of gold could be used, such as on buttons etc.

Related personality types to the colour red that fit with Clay are :

Chip's outfit is a lot more futuristic, mixing elements of technology, metal, space suits and superheroes - pushing him further away from the human world and acknowledging his lack of connection with them. This was a lot harder to find images on, however elements from this mood board provide a good basis to work from on creating something. I particularly like the use of the metal bands around the wrist and shoulders. 

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. 

We also liked the idea of having a character give a look to the camera instead of using dialogue, to give away how they're feeling. This brings me back to the Chuck Jones documentary discussed in a previous blog post, about questioning how the character moves. It says that how the individual moves is dictated by what is going on inside, so hopefully using a mood specific look to the camera at some points will achieve this for our own film in an interesting manner. I think this works well as it doesn't exactly spell out what exactly is happening through a normal dialogue to the audience and gives something a bit different, and much more animated to the visual aspect of the scene. Here are some examples from Parks and Rec and The Office :

Today we had scheduled for the completion of the script, so we took the laptop and decided to work in Starbucks for a change of scenery. I actually found this really progressive, as there weren't many distractions and we were able to stay very focussed throughout.

Tom had begun writing a rough version of the script over summer, however a lot of work had to be done, especially after all the research that we've been looking at, such as how to do comedy. We started from the beginning of the rough draft and re-wrote things / added new material accordingly to how we felt they would sound and work from our imaginations of what the film looks like to us. 

We swapped the order of the timeline around a lot, to make it flow better and tried imagining how we would react to scenarios - "What would you say if you were the character?" was asked a lot!

The one thing we had to decide on, previously not discussed was a conclusion. We tried to think about what we wanted to say from the film and work further on that. I didn't really want to have a complete "animation vs animation" film, where one over ruled the other, so that played a key piece in how I wanted the ending to go.  We decided to show love for both animations. 

I actually really enjoyed writing the script today, even though I consider myself to be far from a scriptwriter. I feel like my confidence with developing ideas is getting stronger and I feel more comfortable with the process. One of the things I enjoyed most was seeing my ideas in my head actually become some sort of substance that is making sense - it's exciting when you see things starting to come together and form! I'm excited! I am very happy with the progress today and we shall be motoring on to get more done in the next couple of weeks!

I found this Google Talk while searching for behind the scenes of various animations on Youtube, and after watching the first five minutes I thought it would be very beneficial for both Tom and I to watch it. The directors of The Boxtrolls, Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable, discuss various aspects from the making of the film as part of Laika Animation Studios. 

Firstly they show one of the trailers for The Boxtrolls which features a lot of behind the scenes, such as the puppet and landscape modelling and designing. This can be quickly seen below :

Originally when the directors saw this trailer for the first time they suggested that they couldn't show a trailer that displays such behind the scenes before the film even comes out, joking about showing the characters with no faces. However they admit that they were "totally wrong" as it turned out that it was what audiences were most interested in due to how they were "hand-made" and really existing in the real world alongside us.  I find this element really interesting as personally it's what appeals about stopmotion to me quite a bit. I like being able to see and feel these characters and how much substance they have to them. I feel like they have a deeper connection to our world, yet they can still have that cartoony - animated, magical vibe / style to them. I could picture myself being very excited at that google talk, and not just to hear what the directors were talking about, but also to see the characters in person and how intricately detailed they are. It's funny seeing the film with these animated characters and sets and then suddenly seeing them in real life, so still but being able to use your senses to explore them. 

They talked about how the key was to find one sequence,  referred to as a "tent-pole sequence," which really works and makes you know that this is the movie. Once you find this, then you can expand outward to the rest of the film. Finding the core of the story is very important for building up the film. 

The advice they gave in the talk from Joe Ranft (who used to work for Disney / Pixar) was to trust the process and even if it feels like you're not progressing and hitting dead ends, just trust that you actually are progressing and will find the story eventually. This meant a lot to me as there have been plenty of times over the past 3 years of making pieces where I've felt the project isn't good enough or questioning will it actually be made *cough Elysian cough* but after working very hard it's always came through (to some extent).  So maybe be more relaxed and confident in trusting in my abilities and that things will hopefully be okay, even in darker, seemingly unproductive times. 

It was very interesting learning how everything has to be made that's in front of the camera. They can't just take pieces from other Laika films, such as Coraline or Paranorman, because each film has a different style and therefore the props have to be made in co-ordinance with with the style of the film. 

I think the main goal for our film is to keep it simple. Find clever ways, such as framing or story-writing that means we can achieve our goal without over-doing anything and making it too complicated. 

Ever since summer when I developed the idea for the animation I always had Lawrence Simpson in mind for the roles. I remember on the alumni days his amazing reels and demonstration for voice acting and his element of fun in them really pushed me to want him for my characters. I was like 'Tom we NEED to get him for our animation!' so when Rosie and Kathleen suggested him as a possible voice actor in the presentations I was like 'Yes - exactly what I've been thinking!' So naturally, right away we composed an email to send to him, enquiring if he was interested. 

I composed a synopsis and some, brief personality traits of each character to give to Tom to include in the email, as well as a quick description of who we were and what we were doing (obviously name dropping DFSA ;) ). 

Luckily Lawrence got back to us, saying he was interested in helping with the project - exciting news! We are currently keeping him up to date with all of the progress of the project and asking him for any feedback he wishes to give as I find it very important that everyone involved has their own creative input. I am really looking forward to hearing his interpretations of the characters, once they've been developed more!