Final Outcome - tactile therapy

Tactile Therapy from Stacy Straub on Vimeo.

For the final outcome of this project, I created the above animation.

Overall, I am pleased with the final film and to round off all of the research and development this project has gone through I feel it solidifies everything I have learnt. It was a great experience to animate and work with real-world materials unlike anything I had ever tried before. I was able to expand my skills as an animator by trying out pixilation and seeing what effects I could get from this. I tried to use cinematography, camera angles and lighting to create an eery atmosphere within this animation, and I felt the lighting was something that was very important. As I wanted this main purpose of this animation to be to confuse and twist the meanings behind these materials, I feel like this was achieved.

The use of sound effects within this animation was very important and if I were to expand on the ways that stop-motion can affect audiences, I would start to research further. I felt it was best to combine live-action footage with animation so that it flowed better; inspired by Svankmajer. What I wanted to get out of this project was to have a deeper understanding into tactility in stop-frame, so that I would have a deeper insight into the animation medium that I love.

My weaknesses in the past was failure to experiment with different materials, and instead I would just pick one and stick with it. From this project I can take this experimentation and start to apply it to model builds for Extended Practice, looking at how I can actually use materials to create meaning.

Finally, this animation experience has taught me how to use senses to twist people's emotions and change audience's perspectives. Within this animation I may have focused on more uncomfortable and grimmer ideas, however I could also flip this in future animations to try for more positive reactions.