Hidden Stories

Throughout the course of the project my idea had changed several times. Originally, I planned on making my film with paper cut outs, as described in my earlier posts, however when it came to animate with them I realised it wasn't going to work due to the complexity of the model and the way it made the horse's movement look stiff and wooden. My next reaction was to make the film hand drawn in Flash, which I experimented with making movement cycles

However I really didnt like the hard lines and colouring flash offered, so I decided to start the whole thing again hand drawn on paper.

At this point I had also decided to change my story almost completely.. my original storyboard was this - 

I eventually came to really hate it though and i started the storyboard over

The story is supposed to be that the 'spirit' of the carousel horse wakes up and goes to join the 'white horses' in the sea waves

This was somewhat inspired by various folk tales about the white foam of broken waves to be herds of white horses leaping out of the sea. This idea has been used in a few films and books

Clip from 1982 animated film "The Last Unicorn", where the unicorns are imprisoned in the sea.

White Horse of Zennor by War Horse author Michael Morpurgo, about a magical white horse that comes from the sea foam

I made this decision pretty late on in the project though and as a result didnt have as much time to animate and edit as I should have. The outcome I feel is poor quality and i am not happy with it...

resources + inspiration