Animating for Hay Festival
To begin our new Animation module, Motion Graphics, we were given the task of creating an illustrative ident for the Hay Festival. We met with one of the festival's organisers and were briefed on the upcoming event, for which this year there are several themes including 100 years since women obtained the right to vote; 100 years since the end of the First World War; and the overall theme of conversation, looking at "how we live now."
I immediately linked the theme of conversation with the story of how the Hay Festival began. The idea to begin the Hay Festival was generated around a dining table and so I thought I would take this as my main setting. A lot of families have their most important conversations around a dinner table and it is seen as a place where at the end of a long day, everyone is reunited to discuss and reflect on their time. I quickly began to draw up a rough storyboard, baring in mind how I could ensure the theme of conversation could be reflected, ideally without dialogue, in such a short space of time and still obtain a steady narrative.
This is where I began to research ways you can incorporate text into animation swiftly and interestingly. My first thought in terms of title sequences and text within animation was the Monsters Inc. introduction from Disney Pixar. This was a really memorable piece of animation for me as a child because although I knew it wasn't the main part of the movie and it was literally just "boring" information (at least to a child) about who had helped produce the film etc, I was still drawn to it every time I watched the film. I used to skip through most long title sequences when I was younger, but the colours and the energy alongside the upbeat jazz music had me hooked. And so I began to think, that if I was attracted to that as a child, then that may be a way I can interest children in my work.
I also stumbled across another animation online which I was inspired by. This was another motion graphic style animation that's purpose was to inform people of a music festival lineup. The animation is for Parklife Festival's 2018 lineup and I found the entire thing so creative, especially the transitions. So from this I took an idea for a possible transition, which I will touch on later on in this post, but it basically involved panning the viewpoint or "camera" up and through the clouds in order to reach another segment of the animation.
From here I did my first storyboard, in which a group of people were sitting and conversing around a dinner table and as they spoke, the words physically left their mouths and drifted into the air. I planned on using words that we, as a class, generated when asked about how we would describe the Hay Festival. As they talked more, the screen would become more and more full until all the words eventually fell down and landed in a bowl in the centre of the table. At the end of the animation, the viewpoint would pan over the top of the bowl, revealing the Hay Festival logo within it.
I then continued to develop this idea over and over again until I came up with my final idea. I will attach below a few images showing how my storyboards changed.
I eventually landed on the idea of animating two characters on a picnic during a spring day (as Hay Festival takes place in the spring.) I then attempted to bump up the energy by having the day be quite windy - this then gave me the opportunity to add a sense of comedy with thoughts of what could fly through the air.
I decided it would also make entrances a lot more fun, for example; the blanket flies in, flowing through the wind; the basket it's contents could fly in and I then came up with the idea of having the people fly in on kites. Following this, books are to fly in and land in the character's laps - adding the reminder of literature (a prominent part of the Hay Festival.)
Below is a few pieces of concept art/character designs. The animation is not finished yet, but I will be sure to add another post once it is!
Amy
