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Inspirations

Abigail Lamb
Mar 6, 2019
4 min read

With the restructuring came an ability to rethink how I wanted the narrative laid out and one of the first thoughts I had was that I would like to reference the cycles of the moon. This structure really helped me think out the steps of the film and gave me something to aim for.

Then I was able to start collecting things that I felt had the same aesthetic as I wanted which allowed me to think about style, colour and framing.

BROAD INSPIRATION -

This first one I found on reddit following the blood moon. It had a similar style to the shot I had in mind for the very first scene where the moon phases kind of mimic an old film count down. Which I also hope will allow me to play with the rocket count down at the beginning of the film.

This set of images are from the beginning sequence to the first episode of the second season of Star Trek Discovery. I love the old black and white, russian cosmonaut vibe to the logo at the beginning. Then the vintage style of the rest of the sequence. My personal style is black and white and I love this textured vintage feel. Unfortunately I couldn't find a video version which means you cant see how this sequence moves but it moves is stilted bursts as if the aged footage is dropping frames. It's very interesting. Something else I may incorporate into the all important title panels in my film.

This piece is by an artist called Beatriz Gascon. As the phases of the moon are important to this piece, I began to look at other representations of it. Needless to say I loved this one because of its stark black and white style. It reminded me a lot of the version I drew in the front of my sketchbook previously.

While this has little visual interest I am more so interested in the timing, tone and sound of the Apollo 11 countdown clock. As I hope for my film to start with something very evocative of this.

Fritz Lang's "Woman In the Moon" or "Frau Im Mond" was one of my first considerations when beginning to look at science fiction or space based films from the past. I am particularly interested in the period of time before we knew too much about how space travel would work as well as before we had audio in films. The exaggerated acting in these films is interesting to me because I may learn some acting tips from them that I had not thought about applying to animation. Although you may do anything within animation, modern animation tends to stick more stringently to the realistic. I hope that looking at period pieces will help me situate my film in an effective backdrop.

I found this account through a youtuber I watch who uses the stills from films provided by this account for quick composition studies when she's painting. I found the way this account breaks films down into a few key shots interesting and helpful. I've used it rather a lot this project when planning angles and shots and picking compositions. I picked the below two examples because one shows of an abstract thought process that might be useful when I come to create that shot myself and the second one I chose because the hand details are relevant to the types of shots I'll be focusing on at several points of this film. I feel as though following an artists hands through the process is akin to following the second most useful tool in any artists arsenal, after their brain of course.

Thematic Inspiration -

Kiki's delivery service, while it's more a coming of age tale about finding where you fit in, it also touches on artistic block and finding inspiration. In fact it even has a painter in it. I watched it again somewhat recently and it struck me as very thematically similar to my project this year.

Stylistic Inspiration -

This section will include the anything I have found that influenced the style of my film. Which is black and white. To begin with, it is worth pointing out that it is partially inspired by my own illustrations, which are typically in black and white.

Alessandro Dettori Novelli is an animator I follow on instagram and have for a number of years. I really love his work and in particular the way he uses light and space is interesting. Here's just one example that you can click into if you'd like to see more. I picked this one as it seemed especially relevant. haha

Lauren introduced Rudo company to me and I really liked them. They reminded me of both my own and Maddie's style. But I also loved the animation and the character designs. In particular, this song, the wolf was appealing to me. They dont do everything in black and white but the vast majority of things are. I'm a big fan.

This GIF from adult swim animator Shane Dering is another style that often influences me. Monocrome palate aside I love the way this tiger moves. The not so subtle but not ridiculous squash and stretch in the eyes is great.

Admittedly this one has more than just a stylistic influence on my film. I saw this at EIFF last year and loved it. The style is appealing, that almost goes without saying however none of these characters speak and yet there's a very high concept piece playing out here. I really do love the way this is told.