Pitch

The motif of my piece is constant change or growth being cyclical, with everything building off of what came before. That is to say, change is constantly occurring throughout the piece, whether it’s something actually growing and changing, or if it’s using the method of rapid replacement to rapidly switch out images, and in the end the whole thing becomes too large and crumples; it then starts over from the beginning.
I’ve broken down the structure of the piece into four sections. There’s the birth, growth, fall, and rebirth. The birth consists of a tree growing, then dropping a leaf which turns into a human figure. The figure then begins to walk through nature, until coming across budding town. He watches the town grow, then moves through the town. He then observes a building grow and change and grow some more, until it becomes a skyscraper. It becomes so large, however, that it pushes against the paper, and the paper crumbles, bringing the building down with it. The figure also sinks into the ground. Where he sinks, a plant blooms to bring the whole thing full circle.




I want to show the changes using draw and erase on paper as well as rapid replacement of drawings (on top of pictures) at certain times. I also plan to bring the paper itself into play later on in the piece, as a means of showing the breakdown and fall section of the cycle. Once the paper is settled, the cycle will begin anew.



My inspiration examples are:
Regrowth
Don Herdzfelts' 'Rejected Cartoons' Specifically at 7:55 when the paper crumbles (then again, Don Herdzfelt is a large part of my inspiration to be an animator in the first place)
Tree Cycle
and
Human Cycle

I wish I could have found the animation I was thinking of when I first had the idea, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was called. Oh well.