New Project, New Inspiration: Temporary Passport
So my twitter friend, @triplecherry is the incredible writer Penny Goring. And this morning as I read her new flash fiction short, Temporary Passport, and I kept thinking as the words flashing frames of visceral and visual delight, “we have to turn this into an animated short.” She crams a fictional relationship into a series of pinhead sized moments that crystallize it’s ebs, flows, and eventual ‘drying up.’ Its mesmerizing to read/experience, haunting at the finish.
I thought animation for adults would be the perfect genre to at least try and capture the dizzying journey her words propel the reader through. Animation has the room for experimentation that brings the fantastic to life–if i can at least help touch upon the velocity and rapture of the original text i’d be thoroughly satisfied.
Penny’s “Temporary Passport” is cinematic in and of itself–and what a challenge it will be to try and recreate w/ sound via cinema the lushly layered sinesthetic moments she paint w/ punctuated, slicing speed that cut to the bone. And you bet her voiceover is winding in and out of it (no objections, a little bird told me you’ve the voice of “Mercedes McCambridge cross Edith Piaf”).
3d+2d+2.5D+stop motion + greenscreen/bluescreen is a process i will be experimenting with best outlined by this artist
who made this piece using the same techniques and software i will be using:
Here are some more animation inspirations i am using and will touch upon through out the work:
Visuals Penny has supplied to draw from:
Examples of my painting style which i will bring in texturing the piece:
old 3D work in maya never got around to exporting (laptop couldn’t handle renderingit hah) that i may use–can recycle all the buildings etc.:
Penny is the writing-”peer” I most admire. I feel sick with envy for a brief moment when reading her work- but it quickly pixellates and gives way to billowing pride. I am so pleased to read your post and see her work both being appreciated and inspiring more genius creativity. Penny is my muse, she inspires to write and live at a volume I never dared to before. She has been infinitely generous with her friendship (familyship) and counsel as a writer. To receive a compliment on my work from Penny is really the only validation I could ever want with my writing- I look up to her in every arena. I am so overjoyed to see “Temporary Passport” come to life.
Yasmin AKA Thing 2
It all fits.
I love the Nan Goldin fotos (its all very familiar, i am pretty sure i studied her at some point in undergrad in either a desire class or performance studies class, pity my mind is a loose seive). I was thinking of using that old sepia white-rimmed dog-eared foto idea as a sort of transition flash between past and present, like in the Toulon / too long moment. i see the train whirring past the Toulon sign, and the image becoming fragmented as piled up sepia stills of that sign and train, on right side (fading over the train foto stills), the close up profile from chin to nose of the woman in the present (the woman at night trying to sleep we see at the end, bathed in blue moonlight) whispering “Toulon… Too long.” Maybe even have too long escape from her moth like smokey type, like the way they animate subtitles in “Nightwatch.” Gonna continue to story board all this out tonight as i continue to make it more clear
Gasps of delight to the smoke from mouth, that’s gorgeous & raw – I’m trying to fit flowers coming from someone’s mouth into a story, haven’t managed it yet!
I thought it would take me days to get right images for my take on tone/spirit of the piece. Nan G saved me the anguish. Any photograph by her does it for me.
Story is def riddled with sepia-ness.
Yasmin – thankyou kindly, you creature thing 2 you. xx
I’ve got the Mirror Mask DVD.
I am obsessed with Neil Gaiman. Also Michel Faber. Under the Skin is so fantastical. Also Crimson Petal and the white is good and “courage consort” collection (altho actual courage consort story is mehhhh). That ho-satchel need to write more books.