Narrative research

I first discovered my love for stop motion animation after watching this music video for oren lavie; something so simple, such as people and everyday objects makes this incredible animation. Just by carefully moving the model and the objects bit by bit, you can create the most amazing scenes. This is why I have chosen to do an animation for my project this year.

Our brief this term is 'the Narrative', and straight away I knew i wanted to do a stop motion animation. I've always had a passion for theatrical make up and detailed face paint, so I came up with the idea of animating the face gradually becoming painted. I researched stop motion 'body painting' and turns out it has been done quite a few times before; this video for  example is a music video for the 'We Have Band' which shows the faces transforming with different colours and shapes. This is exactly what I want to do, show my model slowly transforming into something else through each brush stroke of paint.

It looks like the lines are appearing by themselves all over the body. I have chosen to do the greek myth of Actaeon; the hunter who got transformed into a stag by a greek goddess bathing in the woods. It his punishment for spying on the god, who in revenge turns him into the creature he is hunting. In the end Actaeon's hunting dogs see him as the stag, and kill him themselves. I plain to show the transformation from human to stag through bodypainting, and also show the hunting hounds through face-painted models.