The Bubble, 2016

animation

The theme is appreciation since i believe happiness comes from being grateful for what we own and thinking positive about things around us. I decided to make a short 2D animation, both hand drawn and paper cut. The story is about an ordinary man who is drained from a severe life, but gains a positive perception by looking at the world through eyes of innocence; bubble. The man gets a chance to see things around him and small pleasures in our daily life, such as an small act of kindness (giving a free candy). Accordingly, the genre is drama and slice of life. 

The key element for my production is a film animation and the theme is appreciation. It will be a combination of 2D hand drawn animation and paper cut out animation. I believe happiness comes from being grateful for what we own and thinking positive about things around us. The animation will be called ‘The Bubble’. The narrative is about an ordinary man, who is drained from a severe life, but gains a positive perception by looking at the world through eyes of innocence. He gets a chance to find small pleasures in his daily life that he did not know that could make him happy. Accordingly the genre is drama and slice of life. I will use a ‘bubble’ as my key subject as well as a turning point in the animation from black and white to colour, which is how I will be portraying negative and positive views of world. The black and white will be drawn by pencil and colour pencils and water colour will be used for the colour part. 

I have two target audiences for my animation. My first audience is the grown-ups whose eyes are clouded and unable to see the world warmly with breadth of mind from their busy and harsh life. It is dedicated to men aged between 30 and 45, who I personally consider as the time people become a true adult. To be specific, dads. 30s to 40s are when they settle down into their job, are married and have a child. My mum often tells me that I do not become an adult until I have my own child. This story will be highly relevant to dads who have a responsibility for earning money for their family. Therefore, these people are being weighed down from their full time work same day cycles and busy schedules. These audiences are tired of their life but cannot express this to their family because they do not want to worry them. They may smile in front of them but they always have heaviness deep in their mind. 

Hence, my audiences are expecting a relaxing, flowing and heart-warming story and drawings. They are waiting for an animation that is comforting and peaceful without the need to think much. Also, the audience would love to see the hand drawn animation as it can call out for their memory of the analogue era therefore it can stir a vague nostalgia in them. 

On the other hand, I have my other target audience, both girls and boys, aged between 16 and 20 who are considered as still young adult. Even though these people, including myself would think they are fully grown up, well enough to be called an adult, they are still wild animals, with so many things to learn, experience and fail at. Because they are in between young and old, they have both innocence and maturity. I believe that my audience will respond if they ever have noticed their dad’s tired face from his drooped shoulders when he leaves home for work. The sad smile hidden behind his ‘see you tonight’ smile. There are also possibilities, passions and positivity in these young adults. 

‘The Bubble’ does not criticize nor challenge the audience, but it asks questions to each one of audience. They themselves may find out how mature or how innocent they are. 

It can be fresh for the audience because there have not been many traditional animation these days so they will love to see the old style of animation. Bubbles will be in everyone’s childhood memory so it will be intriguing to see the new approach about bubbles. I wish these young audiences can realise the world of adulthood and be ready for the critical society before they leave their nest of innocence. 

Through this project, I hope to achieve an animation that heals people's mind, especially the adults who are exhausted from the harsh and cynical society. I have chosen to work in traditional 2D animation because motions blows life into messages and helps the messages to be practiced in real life. Animations entertain, teach and nourish our imagination.

By the main contention: the world seen from children's eyes through bubbles, I intend to explore the relationship between adulthood and childhood. The reason I chose bubble as my key image for transformation between adults’ world and children’s world is because it symbolises purity and innocence. Although, there is more than that. Bubbles pop if we blow too hard. They can fly anywhere as far as they want. They represents the children’s infinite possibility but also their pureness of not knowing the reality. As children grow up, there is time when they lose their innocence, just like bubble pops while it flies away. As the young audience move from immature to mature, we start to see the cynical and somehow a ‘truth’ of the world we live in. For these audiences, I want them to think upside down. My animation will not only contrast the innocence and non-innocence but highlight what it is like to be an adult. Growing up means getting to know the behind the scenes. It is an unavoidable fact that we gain the eyes that can see the sadness behind happiness. Thus, only those who can see this behind meaning of my animation can be seen as an adult. I intend to overstate the adults’ point of view more criticizing and cynical than the reality so there is a distinctive contrast between a world of innocence and grown up. 

However, despite the meaning inside, I wish to make those people to feel more relaxed and happy when seeing my animation. My ultimate wish is make them remember my animation for a long time. 

My animation fits into a genre of drama and slice of life that appeals to adults rather than to children. Also, in some aspects, it is also a fantasy since the main guy experience the child’s point of view of life through a ‘bubble’ which is in real life, not possible. Its genre is drama as the narrative of ‘The Bubble’ is more serious than humorous in tone, as well there is a dramatic change in visuals as well as in character’s point of view. It also suits into the genre of slice of life since the story is a lot more realistic and depicts the everyday life of ordinary people. It is set in modern day, in the real world, like us. 

It is mainly in the style of traditional hand drawn animation but also contain cut out animation techniques. It will be composed of frame-by-frame, hand-drawn images. 

I have turning points in my animation which goes from negative to positive, adulthood to childhood, maturity to innocence and I believe this informs its genre of drama. Also, it will be in the main character’s point of view, meaning literally the audience will look through the main character’s eyes. I think this gives an idea on the ‘realistic’ depictions of everyday life as well as the narrative itself is about an ordinary moment of a man. 

My target audience will be drawn into the magic of animation world by the interesting style of showing the almost whole animation through character’s eyes. Therefore, the audience will feel like they became the character, especially my ‘dads’ audiences. Use of colours to portray different aspects of perspective and choice of sound and music will appeal to my younger generation audiences. People appreciate the work that goes into animation.

Music from: 

-Incompetech 'Lone Harvest'

Sound effects from:

-AIOMP3

(Amelia is my english name i used at my high school)

practicing for traditional animation technique

practicing for paper cut-out