My ballet dancer is of the Victorian toy era where she is wound up and performs a dance. Across the front of her hexagonal box will be some text that i have decided upon that will hopefully lend a subliminal message to my final piece. It is quote by Martha Graham and it says: 'Dance is the hidden language of the soul' - and this particular dance is waking the soul within the toy clown. Around the back three corners of her box will be a mirror reflecting both her dance and the clowns gaze.
As i have been dancing since i was tiny i already have a wide range of idea about how she could move but i have decided to best set up her dance i am going to photograph positions and video an actual person before i even consider animating it. I teach some senior students ballet and i already have a volunteer so hopefully once i have had the OK from Alan about my idea i can start to think about the 'dance' section. This is important to my animation because it is the interaction of the clown here that needs to be so incredibly subtle and yet co-ordinate with the ballet dancer. The images below are just to help with this post. My sketches will all be uploaded tomorrow afternoon!
My clown is from the same era, although more tattered and torn and re-sewn, but still just about sewn on will be his makers patch, the thing that makes him an antique. He almost shouldn't be in the antiques store just as his patch is only just sewn on. He has a larger head and more simple features, and wears an all-in-one suit with frilly cuffs at both the ankles, wrists and neck. his design is a blend of all Victorian clown designs.
The story is:
The clown awakes from the antique store and moves from his usual display position to where the dancer is placed. When he is in front of her with his almost immobile porcelain hands he twists the key used to wind up the dancer around, and watches her. At first she lifts just her head to see the clown in front of her, as if she had no life before and then composes her starting position. You see him wind the key repeatedly, becoming more and more infatuated with her dance. As she turns and makes one position she holds out her hand where the two almost touch palms but due to her dance is unable to hold the position long enough to actually touch. Then all of a sudden, the key gets stuck in the lock and both the dancer and key no longer turn. In the clowns desperate attempt to force the key to turn, and with one far to forceful push he snaps the key in the lock and cracks his porcelain hands. The dancer is stopped mid dance and is unable to continue to move, the snapped key lays on the floor and small pieces of the clowns hands are scattered with it. The clown cannot use his hands for anything more and so he is unable to fix the dancer. Instead he kneels in front of her box with the writing, dance is the hidden language of the soul in front of his body - their broken love awoke by dance, can never be fixed.
Evening Heather,
ReplyDeleteI think your story idea has bags of potential, but as I read the precis above I couldn't help but feel that it's cluttered; for instance, the idea that you 'destroy the thing you love' is written into this idea; in his desperation to be with the dancer, the clown breaks her mechanism; in lots of ways, the broken key feels very strong - and the broken hands a symbolic phrase too far; can it be enough that his enthusiasm for the relationship breaks the relationship; I can't help feeling that there is an essential darkness at work in your idea; it does feel very voyeuristic; the clown, watching the ballerina dance - he is in love with her, infatuated, but she is somehow fixed in position, and therefore remote; he can't bear it when she stops being animated, so he winds and winds her - he comes alive when she does, but he gets greedy (pushy) and winds and winds, until her mechanism breaks; there's a certain selfishness here on the clown's part, no? Unless you make it clear that it is a 'consenting' relationship, and she wants to be 'wound'; there is a vague whiff of abuse and manipulation and control here - personally, I think it's good, potent stuff, but I think you need to think harder about the relationship and the issue of 'power' between them; here, the female is passive and the male active - he makes her perform for him - do you see how psychosexual that is? Hmmm - you need to think about the power relations here, because, at the moment, things are a bit skewed; you could embrace the skewed element and put it at the heart of your story - or maybe rethink that dynamic?
As i worked further into this idea it became very very apparent that it was becomming slightly too dark! i noticed this especially when i voiced my ideas to other people, and on hearing myself say the concept realised that there was a considerably deeper story.
ReplyDeleteI have thought about it further, and developed the idea that on breaking the key he is setting her free form this box, enabling her to move from it.
Im working on a storyboard now for it, trying to really develop the story - i really dont want it to be as dark as is was beginning to be! I have posted the storyboard so far but it is not finished, im working out the kinks but think ive come to an ending that i feel happy with, although i do need to discuss it further.
thank you for your comment!