Week 9 Color Exploration to "My Body is a Cage"

(Please listen with audio, as the music enhances the meaning of the film.)

So the theme this week was color, and the color I was assigned was yellow. While people typically associate yellow with its positive connotations--such as sunshine, energy, happiness, youth, and enlightenment--there is actually a darker side to the meaning behind the color. Yellow can also represent loudness, decay, cowardice, age, waste, and sickness. I was very interested in the fact that yellow means both youth and old age/decay/sickness. I also wanted to incorporate the loudness of yellow, making it feel like my character was screaming or moaning. Enlightenment and cowardice were also contrasts I wanted to work with. I thought following the life span of someone who could not come to terms with their aging process, body, or mortality--and who faced both their birth and death with gracelessness and fear--would be an effective means of exploring each of yellow's connotations through my character's facial evolution and expressions.

Miscellaneous symbolism: Upon their death my character reluctantly receives enlightenment as signified by the growth of long hair that halos their face. When you see the character at 30 with a mohawk, the orange tears he cries are actually the male sign (O-->). This represents his inability to accept his adult form or the gender roles society imposes upon him. The opening and closing doors illustrate the rapid speed at which life passes him by. Doors of opportunity open for him, but he is too caught up in his imminent death to notice. The doors then close for him forever.

This is probably my favorite animation so far. In this short film I am telling a story that is actually important to me, in a style that is very much my own. I hope I can continue to tap into the source I used for this in the future. I think it actually helped that I did not use any pencil work in this animation, so my lines were bolder and more free. I enjoyed this loose, flexible style.