Title | Little Apple Of Death
At the beginning of summer, I bought an A5 sketchbook. It fit perfectly in my pocket and I used it constantly, when on the bus, at restaurants, stood in queues etc. I found a pattern within most of my drawings, apples and teeth. When I received the email about completing the summer project, I knew instantly that I wanted my project to incorporate this new fascination.
My first task was to find an interesting fact. I began my research by looking into unique facts about the world, animals, insects and humans. I came across a variety of things that inspired me and some that disturbed me. I gravitated more towards my discomfort, taking in vast information. One psychological condition pulled me forward, Cotards Syndrome. I watched a variety of interviews, read essay papers and comprehended if the condition was in the DSM5 diagnostic criteria.
Once I felt I understood the condition, I wanted to link it with apples. As people who struggled with this condition felt unalive in some regard or another, and that apples have a long standing representation of death, or the weapon to inflict death in folklore, I knew I could entwine the two very easily.
I began sketching apple characters, using this as my tool to represent Cotards Syndrome.
My colour choices were decided by the mix of both red and green apples. I knew I wanted to crochet the outfit and as such, I used my wool to choose the value of each colour. The shoes and outfit were inspired by fairy tales and the whimsical aesthetics in each storybook, artwork and movie. Each choice was carefully made by watching a series of movies and reading a number of children’s books.
Once I had my character creation, I had to figure out what I wanted him to do. I had recently started picking up flowers that had snapped or were on the ground when going on my walks, choosing to dry them out and place them in very tiny vases. I also started buying more plants and repotting them. I found it therapeutic, as though I was nurturing life and also myself. I quickly released, I wanted my character to embody this same feeling through the same action. I watched a number of YouTube videos of people repotting flowers and plants in order to draw a storyboard and create an animatic. I kept it extremely simple, so I could focus primary on the movements of the characters arm.
I made a material plan on procreate, so I had something to follow. I have made clothing for my stop motion puppets before, so I had an idea of how it would look and how to create each piece. However, the small details were something I was unsure about. I began crocheting and found it looked too flimsy and so I decided to make them with clay and paint them instead, using a hot glue gun to attach them. The clown collar is not exact to the plan either, it was a spontaneous choice that I ended up favouring more. At the end of summer, everyone moved out of university housing, and typically people will leave things they no longer want in the common room. This is where I found this ribbon and I tested to see if it was possible by folding the ribbon and hot gluing each section together. The experiment worked so well that I decided to use it on the final character design.
I made my armature with thick wire and sponge for the limbs.
The props were made from paper, crayon to colour, eyeshadow to darken some areas, plants I dried and a wooden slab.
I recorded my puppet by sellotaping my phone to a chair, and using the iPhone stop motion app. I edited the settings inside the app and then began to shoot.
I then took each frame and pulled it into Procreate, blacking out the background. I knew I did not want to add anything in the background, as the character and movements were intended to be the only focus.
I came across a number of challenges, as I did not have the correct tools to film at home. The phone would randomly move and I had to rematch the position using onion skins, sometimes having to restart entirely. As the character was not pinned to the floor, he also kept moving, I would accidently brush the dried dirt and it would be so drastic that it seemed entirely unnatural when watching the frames back. Another issue I found was that the head on the armature was very loose and whilst this made it extremely easy to turn, it also meant that the head would randomly move on its own. But regardless of these challenges, I had so much fun. I learnt so much and the importance of a good, steady setup, and how you can makeshift quite a lot of equipment at home, even if its not perfect.
Once the stop motion aspect was complete, I knew I wanted a beginning and an end. I thought about the rotting apple and what other things in our body can rot or decay. I picked up smoking again around summer and I remember the sickening visuals on the packets and how they made me so anxious, the thought of my lungs decaying terrified me and so I utilised this fear. I created a very basic outline for a body, and then drew from my interest in mould and the growing of spurs. I drew this free hand and then experimented with the movement by using different procreate brush types. Some worked, some didn’t but in the end of creating this quick animation, I began to comprehend how something done quickly and experimental can look so well. I have an issue complicating the simplest of tasks and becoming overwhelming, making it more complex that it ever had to be. This was a big eye opener for me during this process and I’ve taken it with me since.
Using after effects, I added a type writer effect to both the beginning and end of my animation. I first tried to make this effect by writing each word on procreate and then creating a moving curser, but after some research, I found there was a much quicker way to access this aesthetic.
I put each section together using premier pro and then began to find audio for my piece. I chose to use free sound supplied by UAL to find noise effects and epidemic sound to find royalty free jazz music. Finding the audio took me a couple hours and my process included making a split screen and watching each frame very carefully whilst playing an audio that potentially could fit. Once I found one I liked, I would attach it to my project. I do not tend to plan, as I have a basic idea regarding what movements would make what sounds and it’s a simple process of listening to what music feels it fits best.
PADLET LINK
https://artslondon.padlet.org/ebarker0120242/little_apple_of_death-summer-project-22rumyq7bnr51lr5
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