Seed

This page is an infrequently-updated record of how things are going with this animation project - I will post reports as and when they happen (the earliest dates are at the top - scroll down for November 2024).

The Oasis (2021)

In 2021 I adapted Ted Turnau’s short story ‘The Oasis’ into a mini graphic novel called ‘Seed’. You can read it in full below.

How to Listen (2023)

My first steps into hand-drawn 2D animation I created How To Listen. This gave me the confidence to return to ‘The Oasis’ with the idea of developing it into a short film.

Tamil (October 2023)

I wanted to explore the idea of embedding the mystery of the journey into an ancient language. My own roots lie in South Asia - Tamil Nadhu - so I made steps to contact different Tamil communities in South London to see if I could get any help. Thankfully I was given a warm welcome from Kingston Tamil School.

This event was an annual celebration of Tamil culture. I loved seeing so many families coming along to enjoy their children’s performances.

I enjoyed a few hours with Jega, the previous Headteacher who helped me to translate some of the original phrases from the Ted’s story.

Jega was also kind enough to allow me to screen capture his handwriting so I could get a sense of how the letters look as they are being scribed.

I immediately fell in love with the letter forms - even though I don’t speak or write Tamil - there is an ancient beauty to them.

But what about cultural appropriation?

Agreed - on the surface it looks like I am a white man using another culture to make my animation more pretty.

But if you dig deeper you will see that there is much more going on than that. This story is about a person connecting with something ancient, beautiful and somehow connected back to his own origins. In this regard the use of Tamil functions as a direct parallel to my own fascination with South Asia. As someone separated from these origins by some distance and generational time, I am making a film that reflects this journey in meaningful way.

Perhaps the deepest pleasure in creating art is making links that didn’t previously exist. Since starting this project I have found lots of really wonderful relationship connections opening up.

Reference material (January 2024)

At the start of the new year I began taking some early steps with capturing reference images and creating a ‘feel’ for the project.

I’m not entirely happy with this but you have to start somewhere.

February 2024

Then (thanks to Eddie and Sue Arthur) I spent some happy time tucked away working with Jega’s translated text and forming the words into terrain that the character must travel to get to his destination.

It was during this time that I realised the text was just too long to wrangle so I enlisted a new friend (thankyou Malika!) who helped me to reduce the text to a handful of shorter phrases that suggest the tone or meaning of the scene.

This has some spelling mistakes in it - but you get the idea of what I was doing.

Although this was frustrating, there is much value in reducing something down to the essence - this process was going in the right direction…

It was around this time that I created a kind of animated trailer that at least started to tease the ‘feel’ of the film.

Sputnik Funding (April 2024)

I was successful in bidding for a grant from Sputnik which I will use to push aspects of the design further. This nod was a big encouragement to me - I have never received a grant for an art project before(!) so this encouraged me to press on.

May 2024

Several huge developments at this stage. Firstly I got some support from Sreevidhya Chandramouli and Chandramouli Narayanan to create some music in the Carnatic tradition. Another good friend Colin Poyntz chipped in with some additional tweaks.

Thank you for your generosity and assistance in helping me develop this project!

The other big thing was that I was working hard to create convincing animated movement that had weight and plausibility within the environment. Devoting lots of my spare time to this was both frustrating and pleasing - but I’m glad to say that this has been a fruitful activity.

I was trying to create a sense of struggle and upward pursuit.

Notice that the village/smoke is formed out of Tamil lettering.

I produced this video which explores the forming of lettering and the use of carnatic music. All the while I was pushing towards something and enjoying the exploration.

June 2024

I hit a bit of a wall around the bank holiday weekend which actually led to a few months of stepping away. Here are some of my additional sketchbook notes as I tried to tease out further details. Honestly I think I was a bit fatigued.

I didn’t do much more across the summer months but I was thinking about it every day. In the end this distance helped me to make some crucial later decisions.

Alex Grigg’s Animation Basecamp (August 2023)

I went through Alex Grigg’s latest animation basecamp course. It proved to be a really helpful review exercise - especially as I needed to pause what I was doing. Watching Alex explain his thought processes and then illustrate them was super helpful. It was exactly the right thing for me before diving back into things. Thankyou Alex.

Tighter translation and soundscape textures (October ‘24)

Meeting some more friends from the Tamil community helped me to evaluate what I was doing and how to use the language more effectively (thank you Joseph Pandian - one such change was to go from the original title சந்தி to the existing one சந்திப்பு).

Then, connecting with the TS Nandakumar Percussive Arts Centre in New Jersey was another significant boost - being given permission to use their back catalogue helped me to create several ‘soundscapes’ and textures.

Thankyou Purna V for your work in the background helping me with this.

Fleshing out environments (November 2024)

So far this month I have been preparing some very brief animated sequences and still images that represent the key moments in the film. This is really useful because soon I shall be starting animating figures within those environments. As you can see from the images below I found myself leaning towards a big decision - to make the abstract text physical objects. During the summer I was so tired that I lacked the strength to start again - animation is so tiring that you end up becoming massively invested in everything you create - therefore it becomes hard to stop and start again - and this is exactly what this project requires. I have stopped and started all over again - but this time have reduced things down to what I think are the essential aspects of the world I am animating in.

Each of these images will inevitably change as I press on but you can see the project taking some good forward steps.

Roughs: keyframing, blocking and inbetweening (December 2024 onwards)

Just before starting this session I created some makeshift keyframe stills to get a sense of what the main movement needs to be.

Now I am easing myself into the nitty gritty of following the later processes that Alex Grigg so ably demonstrates in his online course.

Some initial observations

I am just jotting down some thoughts while I think of them - while I haven’t done any serious frame by frame animating for seven months I have been thinking constantly about it and reflecting on how to work more carefully. Loads of the stuff I did while I was making the Listening film was pure improvisation. Often I would animate myself into a really terrible corner (something that Grigg talks about a lot with some really useful solutions). This time I have a very different, much more intentional approach.

Keyboard shortcuts - in Clip Studio Paint you have a lot of flexibility (the strength and achilles heel of the application) but after lots of experimentation and thought I have arrived at a bunch of personalised shortcut settings - some of these are adaptations of Reuben Lara’s excellent CSP animation course that I took last year.

Don’t worry if you can’t read this - it’s mainly for my own record in case I lose the sheet.

Animation on an iPad is fantastic but without a portable keyboard and shortcuts you are a fool and will be forever clicking on menus. This is a superpower that I am already benefitting from. The keys beautifully represent a different way of thinking and forming the material and have so far saved me from some awful pitfalls and dead-ends.

Having a conveniently quiet space to think - I remember a Richard Williams lecture where he spoke of the importance of taking out earphones and focussing on the work deeply. This is true - there are certainly loads of stages (possibly the later passes where everything is locked down) that music and/or podcast material becomes possible (and maybe even necessary). For the work of figuring out timing and movement you need to give this serious thought and it is exhausting. I think that this is akin to writing a novel - so many choices and tiny details to reflect on. So I have found a store cupboard space in my house where I can shut the door and be left undisturbed (intentional or otherwise) for hours. So far this is proving a great choice. It is easy to go in there and hard to be bothered.

The tension between plans and reality - you can build something up and hide behind drafted ideas (maybe even write reflective web pages about the process!) but the reality is that in the end you just have to sit there and figure it out. So far I am finding that as I get closer to those moments it is a lot harder than I remember and it takes time. At several points I am finding myself making different decisions based on what it feels and looks like.

This is an example of early blocking where I ended up making some drastically different decisions.

Music syncing is a superpower - the previous project used music later on. In this one I am doing it the other way round (mostly). Having specific cues and following the flow of pre-edited sequences I proving to be a wonderful thing. Occasionally I am finding myself asking hard questions like: would I be more free without the score? Would it be more natural? But having something to work to is a really interesting discipline and definitely forces you to be very structured.