This week we looked at animators who were, in their era, uncommon and revolutionary as they created animation (women were not considered to be capable of creativity by many male animators) from the perspective of realistic female characters.
Joanna Quinn made two animations we watched surrounding the same character, Beryl "Girl's Night Out" and "Body Beautiful". The animation style is like a mix between life drawing sketches and exaggerated cartoon motion and caricatures. Quinn's use of character design was a strong statement in that era as she dared to portray a woman as a non-idealised, average, overweight working class individual. The rapid and surreal movements in the animation create a hectic, busy feeling and a sense of noise much like the busyness that the character felt as she worked hard in the factory and at home, doing all the housework like a woman in that time would have been expected to.
Candy Guard created many short pieces that explored the themes of relationships, health, body issues and everyday life from the perspective of the average woman. Guard's style is very simplistic; cartoon figures drawn with few choice lines and little shading or colour. The main focus of these shorts, such as "Moanologue" and "Fatty Issues" is the comedy aspect, as many will laugh in the realisation of how close to real life these witty observations are. Occasionally darker themes are behind the narrative, again they reflect real life and serve to force the viewer into considering situations they've experienced which are similar.
Alison de Vere created the short film "The Black Dog", which follows the heavily symbolic story of a woman trying to improve her life and herself as she is guided by a mysterious and protective spirit-animal type entity which takes the form of a black dog. The style of the animation is very sketchy and fluid like a cartoon but the dark, muted colour palette and frightening character designs takes this piece far away from any suggestion of comedy or lightheartedness. The viewer watches anxiously as the female protagonist experiences vanity, greed, lust and ends up on the wrong side of various malevolent creatures. Time and again the black dog steers his ward onto the right path. The piece is eerie, thought provoking and a little bit depressing.
Candy Guard created many short pieces that explored the themes of relationships, health, body issues and everyday life from the perspective of the average woman. Guard's style is very simplistic; cartoon figures drawn with few choice lines and little shading or colour. The main focus of these shorts, such as "Moanologue" and "Fatty Issues" is the comedy aspect, as many will laugh in the realisation of how close to real life these witty observations are. Occasionally darker themes are behind the narrative, again they reflect real life and serve to force the viewer into considering situations they've experienced which are similar.
Alison de Vere created the short film "The Black Dog", which follows the heavily symbolic story of a woman trying to improve her life and herself as she is guided by a mysterious and protective spirit-animal type entity which takes the form of a black dog. The style of the animation is very sketchy and fluid like a cartoon but the dark, muted colour palette and frightening character designs takes this piece far away from any suggestion of comedy or lightheartedness. The viewer watches anxiously as the female protagonist experiences vanity, greed, lust and ends up on the wrong side of various malevolent creatures. Time and again the black dog steers his ward onto the right path. The piece is eerie, thought provoking and a little bit depressing.
No comments:
Post a Comment