HUM 203: The World in Motion, Animation in Theory and Practice

Assignment 1

Assignment 2

Final project

My project is a twisted fairytale of sorts where, after seeing a reward poster for slaying a dragon, six knights individually embark on a quest to find and slay said beast. Created in Flash and hand-drawn with a Wacom Graphire tablet, this project is a composite of both tweening and frame-by-frame animation. The key technique I wanted to use was closure--letting the audience fill in the blanks. To do this, key scenes are kept intentionally short while leaving enough suggestive illustration to provide closure. A secondary focus was that of controlling time--great distances are traversed in short time, while an act as fast as a swordstroke is kept frozen in time as a still frame.

Since I was a child, I've had a fascination with knights in cartoons, stories, movies, and videogames. In the great majority of these works, they're portrayed as the definition of chivalry, selfless men who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. My desire in making this animation was to take that cliche and turn it on its head.