Animation: The Clockmakers

For our first Business of animation project we had to choose a competition brief, working in groups we had to produce a piece of animation. I dare to say, that our team struggled the most and couldn't decide which project to choose. We were debating and voting, since everyone had their favourites. Eventually , our choose narrowed down to Clockmakers competition and Chanel 4. After a bit of negotiation we have all decided that it is going to Clockmakers brief, even though we have failed to register on time. The title of competition is "Picturing Time".

Probably the best way to start a creative project is brainstorming and mind mapping your ideas. It really helps. After a few hours of thinking how to visually portray time I've remembered reading a short french novella called "Le Petit Prince" (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. This was a philosophical story about love, responsibility and devotion. Little prince opens our eyes on the wonders of our everyday life and gist of human relationships. The author with bitterness explains that when adults part with their childhood, they start forget about the internal values.

“All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

After recalling the story I have decided to come up with one. I wanted it to be a tale.

The tale is about a man, who has lost his beloved wife many years ago and recently the string that was connecting him to the memories of her faded when the last life in the whole house has died - the flower. The man was blaming himself for letting that happen and was sure that with the death of the flower he had definitely forgotten his beloved. That triggered his obsessive idea of bringing the flower back to live. The man stops clean his house, which starts to pile up with dust and the truck outside rusts over the years. The main character practically locks himself up in the basement with a huge contraption build to bring back flower. Everyday he notes down the results of his project. And everyday there's no progression. Time passes the man grows old, the bookcase if full of diaries but there are still no results. Tired from all of the effortless research and tries, he sits into his old chair reading and recalling what has he done wrong. Not noticing that, the man falls asleep and will never wake up. When all of the hope seems to be lost there's always a drop of faith that give us the power move on.

This tale should encourage people not waste their lives on sitting and waiting for the perfect moment to come, but instead go and live the moment. Not only that, but I've also found that there could be an alternative way to understand this tale. One should spend his time with close ones, since there's always a chance that he may never see them.

After making a few doodles in my sketchbook, I have presented this story to my group mates. The only thing I was worried about is that I wanted this animation to be a stop-motion, but with the amount of time and work we have it's possible that we might not handle it. Apparently, my teammates have all seemed to like the story and agreed that it will look good as a stop-motion short.

After that there was researching and planning our next moves.

Character reference:

For this project I wanted a stylelized almost cartoony character. I find Ben's Whitehouse artwork inspiring. The shapes of his characters really bring out their essence.