PROBLEM:

To a narrative that is inspired by Italo Calvino’s “Lightness” memo. To create a simple stop motion animation that embodies the concepts in the text, tells a brief story, and is engaging.

SOLUTION:

I created a short stop motion animation where the “characters” were all made out of squares of crinkled colored cellophane. My concept was to create a story about a single lonely blue square who was then joined by a friend, then a bunch of friends and then left alone once again. I titled the piece “Unbearable Lightness Is Fleeting” to show the fleeting nature of life.

For the title sequence to this narrative piece I animated the letters of the title Unbearable Lightness Is Fleeting into the frame. I crafted these letters by printing out the letterforms in helvetica bold oblique (as shown above) and then cut those forms out of the same crinkled cellophane that I used to create my characters. This allowed me to introduce the visual aesthetic of the piece and create a vibrant and engaging opening. Additionally this allowed me to explore the how to create tactile typography from a digital origin. 

The Narrative of this piece was that of love and/ or friendship gained and lost. In addition to Calvino’s piece I drew inspiration from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I was attempting to distill the heart of the human narrative into the simplest of stories. The beauty of this piece is in it’s luminescence. I shot each frame individually from a tripod pointed directly at a light table in a dark room. Through this process the colors, the creases, the imperfections of my ‘characters’ glowed. During the climax of the piece, shown here, the screen was filled with dancing color and light. For me this was the “unbearable lightness” referenced in the title. There was a certain beauty in chaos and the purpose of the piece is to convey the fact that beauty and chaos are fleeting in nature.