February 12th: Day 5 of SRP

 

Hello Again!

This post signals the end of the first week of my Senior Research Project. I am very happy to announce that first of illustrations, (the one that I posted on 2/8) has been animated!!!

Since before the start of the project I have been keeping in touch with Joshua Currington, who is a Professional Animator. He primarily works with Flash programs, but has graciously lent his skills and teachings to help me complete this project using Adobe After Effects. I was unbelievably excited when the animation was finished this week, so I hope you all enjoy watching it! (It looks extremely blurry in this video, and I'm not entirely sure why!)

My plan for each of the animations I have is to create looping videos that play continuously alongside the text. Each page of the scene is going to be comprised of a number of panels, which consist of either the words taken from the scene, illustrations, or animated illustrations.

Right now, I plan on having around 16 of the illustrations be animated. Some of them will be much easier than others to animate, all depending on the subject matter, and how much detail I want to include. In this animation above, the only things that were animated were the rain and the stars. 

In other animations however, I might want to try creating different effects. For instance I might have stalks of grass blowing violently to show harsh winds, or perhaps I will add in flashes of lightning to compliment the downpour of rain and breathe more life into the storm. All in all, it's going to be an extremely fun and exciting project for me as I continue!

I want to emphasize some aspects of the project before I wrap up this post. Mostly about the nature of what is I am actually creating.

I've been doing more research, and I am more certain right now that what I am creating is not quite like a graphic novel, nor is it like manga, nor is it like comic strips. What I am doing with this project is that I am taking the text of an existing novel, my very own story, and I am enhancing it with a great deal of illustrations, animations, and maybe even a musical score. This makes it different from a the other genres, in a subtle way though.

Just because I include an illustration that shows rain falling down, or an illustration that clearly depicts nighttime that does not mean that I am deleting the parts of the text that might say "It is nighttime” or “It is raining." 

Graphic novels and Manga and Comic strips rely on pictures to convey very important aspects of a scene such as people's actions and movements, the appearance of the setting, the time of day things are occurring, etc. About the only instances when words pop up in these kinds of books is within speech bubbles. (In rare instances, there are some short sentences dispersed across these books) Pictures are what convey the majority of the meaning, and they are essential to these genres of literature. Most of the time, exposition is not a necessary, or even helpful addition.

But in my novel, pictures are never just going to replace parts of the text, and the entire story could be relayed in full detail without a single picture or animation ever showing up. Though with that being said, I do not feel that the text alone conveys all the emotions, and fantastical images that many accompanying illustrations and animations could contribute. That is why I am claiming that this work is a hybrid novel.

In Routledge Encyclopaedia of Narrative Theory (2005), hybrid novels are defined as:

“ones that combine, transform, and subvert the conventions of several narrative subgenres; break down the boundaries between fiction, poetry, and drama; import non-literary discourses and text types; and employ narrative strategies that strive to imitate the organizing principles and paintings, music, and film.” (p. 227)

Later, it goes on to say:

“Hybrid novels [are] novels in which graphic devices like photographs, drawings, and experimental typography are integrated into written text. Within hybrid novels, word and image combine to a text that is neither purely written, nor purely visual.”

Hopefully I haven’t bored or confused anyone too much with the lengthy distinctions I’ve been rambling on about! I just felt that it was necessary to explain the nature of the project, and how creating it will be slightly different from how one would create a different sort of work.

Next week, I plan to continue on with my illustrations and continue work with the animations. I’ve also started playing with melodies on my piano for the musical score. As far as my posts go, I am going to start revealing what the scene I am working on is going to be about, and start setting the stage for the readers. I am very excited, and I hope you are as well!

I look forward to talking to you all again!

~Keanan~