Research

In terms of style and symbolism, we are thinking of referencing 'Pink Floyd: The Wall' movie. It is drawn in really unique style which was also referenced by propaganda posters. We really like the way, the war is symbolized in the video 'Goodbye blue sky', it metaphorically shows the real facts. The second video is not related with war however, but again we really like how's the intimate scene is converted into a 'flower fight'. Flower is something innocent and beautiful, however they fight, which is opposite way you would relate them to. that reflects how complex these feelings were between the lovers. So we want symbolically represent the war, to create the right environment and mood.

Early Ideas and Influences.

During the subject research we were looking at different styles that we could use in our work. We watched an Animation by Tomek Baginski which tells the history of Poland, and the whole animation links very well to the project showing different eras of the country and how other countries have effected it. We especially have taken to notice the use of a map, and how it can be used without recreating the whole world. For example how the hammer and sickle (symbol of the soviet army) on the Russian territory takes over other countries, the sound effects of machine guns and explosions make it very obvious what is happening.

 A different example we found of an animation with a use of maps and sound effects.

Lady Gaga in her music video 'Born This Way' uses a machine gun as a symbol of evil and death. The image is a quite disturbing as the Evil Goddess gives birth to a weapon which is used for murder and war. This links with our thoughts of creating our own symbol. A creature that will be collecting people's lives causing war and terror.

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Relevant images linking to war:

Hovis Advert (2008)

To go on the idea of having two characters and the importance of contrast we thought that a young child juxtaposing the evil war woman like creature would feel appropriate.
We were reminded of the Hovis advert where a young boy travels through eras of history trying to taking his loaf of bread home. This tells the audience that the Hovis bread has stayed the same throughout time.

We thought we could do something similar as we want to show that war is bad and still continues to go on. This could involve the same young child character being in each event of war shown but taking on the culture of the place they are in whether it Germany, Poland ect... This could be shown through colour palette or something like change of costume.



Initial Animation Idea

From the research carried out so far and the strong opinions on the World Wars by studio members we have written a short paragraph of key elements of the animation we are thinking of having as well as some details as to how some of our ideas could be carried out during animating.

First character is the creature, which is a symbol of the war.  The action is in the military tent/cave, where the big political map is hanging on the wall. Creature plays ‘darts’, throwing symbols of dictatorship countries at the map. That would represent countries that were affected by the war at certain times. When the creature throws a symbol at the country it leaves a burn in the map. The creature takes bits of ash and puts them in the labelled jars that say the date on them. That represents certain events of the war.

*The rise of Nazis (throwing swastika at the Germany, it changing the colour from beige to red)

*The invasion of Poland (swastika is thrown at Poland, which leaves a burn mark in the Poland mark) 

*frames with ‘achievements of previous wars’

Examples of metaphoric/symbolic imagery during WWII

As part of our research we looked at key images/ symbols that related to the Second World War. We felt that these were extremely powerful in getting across important ideologies and identities of figures involved at the time in history so we have decided to try and include some of these 'idents' in some way as part of our animation.

This should help keep the animation around the suggested time making sure it doesn't drag while we try and explain what is happening but rather getting the power of visual symbolic imagery to do all the talking.

The Nazis are typically identified through the symbol of the Swastika so we felt that the use of this image would act to allow the viewer to quickly identify with this element of the war.

 

The hammer and sickle is linked back to the USSR so again this would be a powerful image to quickly introduce them.

 

This star was what the Jewish population was made to wear to identify them apart from everyone else so this is an important symbol in showing the act/effects of WWII.



Research: focusing on the WW2

The Second World War is full of events which taken away millions of lives in the World. The Western countries malpractice after treaty of Versailles, Germany's hopelessness after being suppressed by Western countries, and the East brutality led innocent people to suffer. The political powers which fought for the better place under the sun are still fighting. The terrible atomic war never ended, it grew up into a Cold War which in our beliefs never ended. We want to send people the message that the evil of the political wars are endless. That is the reason we want to focus on the Second World War in our animation. These are the main events that are the most important and major during the WW2, and we are going to focus on:

• Germany increases their military force and equipment
• 1939 Poland’s invasion
• 1939 France and Britain declares war on Germany
• Holocaust
• Stalingrad
• Pearl harbour
• Battle of Midway
• D-day
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Research

Research

Pigment Studios

Welcome everyone! We are second year CG Arts and Animation student from the University for the Creative Arts, Rochester, who have come together to collaborate for a narrative project. You can follow our development of our short film via our studio blog. Hopefully you will find it interesting. Constructive criticism is more than welcome! Thank you, Alice, Emma and Ernesta.