Final Classics Piece & Evaluation

The Curse of Life follows the metaphorical birth of a young girls realisation that her life is not worth living. This leads you to her literal death, where she herself feels she is finally free.

The Curse Of Life

Evaluation

1.     What have you learned? / How do you know?

I have learnt that by planning and storyboarding my drawings before, when it came to drawing them I was able to complete this process quickly and efficiently.

I have also learnt that meaningful script writing comes easy to me, and that I enjoy writing from the heart. I know this as the script that I used as a voice over for my classics took me twenty minutes to write.

I have also learnt that sometimes things do not go to plan; however the new outcome can be better. I had planned to include both moving and still images in my classics piece, by cutting by drawings out, place them on green screen and then layering the moving in image behind. However when my images where seen it was believed that by doing this the impact of the drawings themselves would be lessened. So in the end it was decided that I would just show my sketchbook as exactly that – which I believe to be better.

2.     How might you use it in your show reel?

I would use the clip of the apple and the ending, to show that I can collaborate both moving and still image together.

3.     What does it say about you and your personal style?

I believe that my classic’s has enabled me to show both my script writing skills and my drawing ability. My personal style of realism and the realisation that life doesn’t always have a happy ending has shown through ‘The Curse of Life’.

Overall I believe that my final piece was the best that I could have done. I was push and challenged in my skills and abilities, however enjoyed both the production process and the editing process. I appreciated having complete creative and technical control when doing classics, as it enabled me to fully express my talents and myself; which is why I believe this to be my best piece of work so far.

Influences and ideas

Roald Dahl

The story I have chosen to take inspiration from is ‘The Minpins’. I enjoyed this book as it has amoral message, and I can draw religious elements from it also.My idea stems from ‘The Forest of Sin’, and the idea of sinning, the devil and death.

Film Influences

La Jetée

La Jetée is a 1962 French science fiction featurette by Chris Marker. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. The film runs for 28 minutes and is in black and white.

•From this film I like the ideas of the using:

•A mixture of still and moving images (the majority being still)

•A monologue as voice over

•Using non-diegetic sounds and diegetic audio

•By watching this film I have also decided to incorporate the whispering, but however I will use it as
the devils voice.

Bodysong 

Bodysong (2003) is an Avant garde film that uses existing clips to creative a narrative. I will use the same idea of using existing clips to enhance my narrative. These existing clips will be apart of the still image, to help bring meaning and movement to the piece.

Pan's Labyrinth

From this film I have taken the idea of procreation and rebirth. I like how the film has images that symbolize this meaning. I will use the idea of birth and new life at the start of my short film. By doing this it will be a contrast to the theme of death and decay I will have running through and ultimately end and help to emphasis the theme.I also like the fairytale feel that the film offers. I think that it helps to demonstrate the harshness of the images seen in the film as well as showing innocence.

Shot Inspiration

Song Influences

Dabin x Apashe x Kai Wachi - Forsaken

This song only has the following lyrics:

There is no God in heaven, 

You need to run for cover, 

No one will be forgiven till everything is over. 

These lyrics inspired me to make my short film have a religious theme run throughout. From this song the image of the devil, sin and death arose.

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Royksopp - Running to the Sea (ft. Susanne Sundfor) (Seven Lions Remix)

Lyrics 

My Idea

Title : The Curse of Life

Length : 3 minutes

My film will be a series of drawings depicting the journey of a young woman. i will use non-dietetic sound (like wind) in a diegetic way, that is relevant to the image. i will also have a voice over that will be the inner monologue of the young woman, explaining how she has ended up where she is - both mentally and physically.

“Its at this point in life I start to wonder if there even is a point. why have we been sentenced to a life - if you can call it that - of heart ache, pain and cruelty. when will we be told what our penance is for; what our doings in our past lives caused us to spend, what feels like a torturous eternity, repenting for them.

if I were to know that this is what life was, and if I had a choice, eternal darkness -where senses are unnecessary- doesn't seem like the worse option. judgment and resentment are all I feel. and the constant fluctuation between what seems to be happiness, and what I know to be sadness, has become tiring. To much effort, time and energy goes into making others happy and keeping everybody else sane whilst, I myself slowly drift into madness.

 having no one and nothing at this point is more of a blessing than it would ever be a curse. all there is left to do now is embrace my desire to depart  and welcome the release of death.”

The narrative follows the young lady from her metaphorical birth (which I will depict by showing her in the fetal position), to her actual death. everything in between will be a representation of her lost faith, torturous life and loneliness. 

I have chose to draw out my short film as I want it to seem like a book, and adult fairytale. the book idea will be emphasised at the beginning, with the opening shot being of a book with the first line of the young lady's monologue written on. Also there were some shots that i wanted to include to enhance the narrative, that i would have not been able to shoot. for example i want to include a shot of a girl falling from a cliff into water.