Plantlife

And finally....
My 4th animation.

The inspiration for this animation comes from a drain I found in Edinburgh last year while we were doing an urban project. Beneath the metal spars there were beautiful plants growing.
Nature is ever making it's way back above the concrete and slabs we build on the earth.

So this is what I wanted to show.
To get the plants to appear to be growing was one of the more difficult aspects of this film.
I solved the problem by small increments of drawing all over the plants.
If I did it again I would do even less drawing before taking the photgraph.

The lack of a decent sized tripod meant that I couldn't easily take the photos from above therefore it's all done on the wall. This of course meant that I had to use something to stick the cobbles/slabs onto the drawing. Masking tape to the rescue and a lot more work.

I think the construction sounds for this work really well. I found a way of layering them by saving as a movie with one lot of sounds, then importing that movie into another project. In this way I could then add another layer of sound where I wanted.
In this movie there are three layers in the construction part. Many of these sounds were recorded in the technician's room including the heavy metal and skil saw. My car engine was another and various things being knocked together including bricks for the latter part.

Taking this experiment further would be an interesting project and I think I would have more plants growing, possibly have the camera pan the area and therefore more construction. I would also like to have the slabs/cobbles fall into a heap which was visible and the plants growing through more slowly. Another idea was to have rubbish blowing past and down the drain and then a seed, bringing the whole concept back to the beginning. Life in a never ending cycle.