Project Proposal
- Flow of Time
- I was always fascinated with the idea that we were literally born to die, that every second of our lives is every second closer to death. I decided to explore a different concept, much darker than what I am used to. I would like the audience to get a “wake up call”, relating what I am trying to convey in my video which is to spend time on things in life that matter and let go of things that are trivial.
- I intend to create a 1 to 3 minute animated video, going through the ageing of a character since birth. The audience would see the gradual ageing of the character and how they would eventually meet Death, a character that waits at the end of the character’s life.
- I would mainly be using Photoshop to animate frame by frame, and using after effects to edit.
- The video will be projected through the class’ projector. I would use a timer that counts down the duration of the video and have it ring at the end of the video.
It starts off with a clock with the time ’01:00′ and you see an image of a baby, to signify the start of a new life through the 24 hour clock. As time passes, the baby ages and time moves on as well. Every time the character ages, the alarm would ring. At the end of the character’s life, at ’23:59′, it shows that the alarm clock was Death all along, waiting for the moment the character dies which is at ’00:00′. At the end, there a voice over of a poem by Ursula K Le Guin, Hymn To Time, which tells us about how we as humans chase this notion of time, using units, be it through inanimate or animate objects, daily natural occurrences such as day and night, etc to measure time when time is ever flowing and stops for no one. At the moment the poem ends, an alarm would ring in real time.
Honestly, while doing this project I felt really pressured as I dug myself a grave by raising the standards for myself through the previous project. I kept doubting my own concepts and was worried that people would not be impressed if I could not hit my own standards. Ironically, while overthinking things, I wasted lots of precious time that I could have used to work on my final project. Hence, I felt disappointed that my video fell short of my expectations and usual standards.
Audience Reactions
I am thankful that the audience were sensitive and encouraging, even though I felt pretty down. I’m also thankful to my friends for helping me through this project and for providing support, I would not have been able to move on without them. If I could work on a similar project again, I hope to be able to talk about my concepts confidently without doubting myself again.