Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

30Jun09

Just finished cutting a second animated short that my brother’s been putting together. This time it’s for ITV’s Signed Stories website. The brief was to create a 1-2 minute animated film based around a well-known nursery rhyme. The site features a selection of films for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids based around fairy-tales, kids books and the like, with both subtitles and signing.

Although in many ways this was a simple film to cut, even simpler than the last animation, there were a couple of factors which made it a little tricky. All the audio (music and reciting the nursery rhyme) is going to be done by ITV after we’ve locked picture, so I’ve been cutting a film completely without sound which lends a very unreal air to the film, and makes it difficult to engage with the film as an immersive experience.

I also find animation quite difficult to cut anyway because you don’t have all those subtle movements which you often use as rhythmic markers, instead you have shots in which the movement often finishes to leave you with a static, so finding a cut point that feels right (ie not too long and not too short on the shot) is particularly challenging. Obviously at the higher end the level of animation is often incredibly complex so I would imagine this is less of a problem, but creating realistic movement is pretty difficult. The music is also going to be added by ITV without either of us having heard it beforehand, so that may well completely alter the whole tone of the film.

Wikipedia Article of the Week: Jane Taylor

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Tags: animation, Film, ITV, Short Film, Signed Stories