Methods of Motion: Final Project Planning
It was love at first sight. The risograph printer quietly tucked away in the IDM print lab. Since my first prints, I’ve dreamed of riso animations. Carefully peppering and printing each frame, scanning them onto the computer, and editing in AfterEffects. A tedious and arduous process, but well worth the end result.
I was thrilled (and fangirling really hard) when I saw that Kelli Anderson was joining ITP as a resident.
Here is a compilation of her class’ work with riso animation:
Just breathtaking! It scratches all of the itchy parts of my brain just right. I seriously cannot describe the visceral sensations watching this gives me alongside a deep burning desire to create it.
I am also inspired by Julia Schimautz and her riso animations.
There’s also this by Hiromu Oka:
And this by Carla Lopez
As far as content, I have a few different options I’m toying between:
A Simple Music Visualizer for UFO by Jim Sullivan
Here is the song:
This psychedelic rock n roll masterpiece really conjures up a vivid image in my mind. A desert landscape, a bearded man, aliens, Jesus. I’m really fascinated by this song and album in general because of Sullivan’s cryptic lyrics which seem to foreshadow his own unsolved disappearance in 1975 in New Mexico.
Here are some mood board images:
All of these images have a very subtle psychedelic-ness to them, but not so tacky like what it looks like when you google psychedelic art on google.
Another Music Visualizer for Walking the Cow by Daniel Johnston
Here is the song:
This eerie, lo-fi track from mentally-disturbed but musical genius Daniel Johnston also vibrates just right in my brain. In the film The Devil and Daniel Johnston, he says that the song is about “feeling the weight of the world.” The cow, in turn, could be metaphorical for this burden or for depression, or just overall bad feelings. It reminds me of another favorite song, I’m Writing a Novel by Father John Misty, where he talks about walking a black dog which is definitely a symbol of depression. If I go down this idea route, the visual aesthetic would be similar to this video by the incredible Kirsten Lepore:
This miiiiiiight just be too big of project for the time frame, and I want to make sure I finish in a way that satisfies me so maybe I’ll save it for another time.
“Nightly Ritual” Animation
And my last idea will show a girl walking into the bathroom, appearing unsatisfied with her hair. She eyeballs a pair of scissors and snips away at her hair until she is calmly satisfied, sets the scissors down, walks out, and shuts off the light behind her. It’s inspired by a nightly ritual that began for many people during the lockdown in 2020 where many people gave themselves “quarantine bangs.” It's lighthearted and pokes fun at us who dared to cut their own hair. Cutting your own hair feels pretty empowering, to me at least. For much of my childhood, my long soft hair was ogled over by my adoring parents and grandparents and relatives alike, telling me to never cut it! While I know this came from a place of love for me….it made me want to cut it. It also is about the intimate moments you have with yourself when you're alone in the bathroom, facing yourself in the mirror. I found this painting some time ago on my Instagram explore page and really related to it:
The character in mine would be more simple shapes, better suited for the riso. I also love bathroom tile illustrated:
How I’ll Do It
I am a bit unsure of the most efficient technical process for this. I am already familiar with prepping multi-colored files for riso and mixing colors with opacity, but doing it all for a moving animation seems like challenging multitasking. I think I will ask Kelli Anderson to review this idea with me, but in my mind, it makes the most sense to animate in layers like in Adobe Animate (Can this be done in Aftereffects?) and then export each frame as a pngs making sure they're organized by color layer. Then printing like that. Maybe I’d print four frames per page of paper so I’m not using too much paper and making an excessive amount of masters.
So this is as far as I am with planning for the final. I may update this page as a whip up a few more mood boards and storyboards.
