This is a subject which crosses my mind the more I see new animation work coming out. I’d like to share it in the hope its of use to image makers and viewers alike.
Everyone in the business of filmmaking is constantly aware of the rule relating to the Safe area (also called TV cutoff). All design for television is made with an invisible border which clips about 20% of the image. It’s a long established rule that all movement must take place within one border, and all text within another.
This rule is, in my view, completely outdated and unnecessary, and may be officially forgotten about immediately. It simply lacks any practical application considering how most video is viewed today, digitally, online and on modern screens.
As a symbol of where we are now I feel it’s time to drop it and start taking advantage of the full-frame.
From an animation point of view, it’s always been quite vexing to have to keep everything within a certain frame, but still to work to an outer frame just in case.
From a design and composition point of view you want to use your full canvas without restriction, to create a certain balance (or lack of balance) and know your audience will see the same thing. Unfortunately with the Safe Area rule you would have to make a composition work within one frame, then extend it out for posterity. (It must surely be frustrating to anyone involved to have all that old work now be seen exposing the full frame, not what the compositions were designed for.)
This was something I considered when doing my short film Wofl in 2006. The trees in certain shots fit into square shapes, a simple motif which helped establish that world. I can say that, less obviously, they were an expression of frustration at fitting things into this arbitrary frame. They are actually fitting snugly into the Safe Area.
Breaking this rule 5 years ago would be considered unprofessional, but things most certainly have changed, despite this so many still blindly cling to it. For example, a small segment I did for the Boing Boing blog some months ago had images with text that filled the frame. When the thing went online, an editor somewhere had gone in and neatly fitted the image down without thinking. There’s something inexplicably dull and mediocre about the result, small enough as the change seems to be.
The Safe Area is part of a long list of rules which I find useless in modern image making. They reoccur as default, unquestioned laws which will unfortunately paint all which we see as the 00’s style in 10 years.
I really believe we ought to be questioning every rule we are told, especially with animation, when - as trite as this remark will always sound - you can do anything.
David
RGBXYZ, the most crude, unpalatable 3d animation ever made will receive it’s official world premiere at this years prestigious Berlinale film festival. How it got accepted is anyone’s guess.
Firstly I should say that with anything we create, there are two ways of releasing it. The first is by saying nothing at all, and allowing anyone interested to interpret it as they will. This is of course, ideal, however in my experience practically impossible. I have found that by saying nothing one leaves open the door to wild speculation and misguided (or simply naive) conclusions about the work, which tend to spread in the absence of sensible opinion. Frustrating. The second way is then to say something, to be precise about it. The immediate drawback of this is that one must be very clear and unedited, or else it risks coming out as complete nonsense (and practically every interview I have had comes out this way). So I will use this platform to give a cursory introduction to what I have done in this film, without anecdotes, summary or over complication.
Let me be clear about the following; The film has no story. The film has no meaningful dialogue or any exposition, it lacks any expressive animation or bold colours. There is nothing extraordinary about the design. There is nothing ‘imaginative’ about it, for that word now describes very specific criteria. In short; it is the anti-animation. I wanted to achieve a complete asceticism, guided as much as possible by emotion, a feeling of internal coherence rather than narrative logic. Above all, to borrow the words of Chris Ware, to create a feeling of what it’s like to be alive. The only rules observed in it are a standard 3 act structure and thematic consistency, all else was brought into question.
The common reaction to this type of film is that it’s boring, too slow, testing and often self-centered. I can sympathize with this, I have fallen asleep during some of my favorite films, it took me months of quite intense unlearning before I could absorb them properly for what they are. The fact is that we are so used to being treated like idiots by directors that we tend have an initial bewilderment with real works of cinema. Our normal response is to politely say that they are beautiful but secretly feel a bit lost. Bullshit. We ought to start knowing what we hate and what we love and not being afraid of saying so. The animation industry is in particular need of polemical discussion.
Beauty, or let’s say, aesthetic originality, is the minimum requirement for animation, so personally I can’t take any such complement seriously, I have no intention of making eye-candy. I should then explain something of the content of the film, without drawing any exact conclusions about it. It’s specifically inspired by landlords I have lived with in London during 2005/6. It seems to me one of society’s most peculiar creations are small-time landlords; their living is made almost automatically, sometimes accidentally, and because of this they seem to lose the spirit which keeps us all going. Life without some kind of daily struggle seems utterly terrifying to me, much more terrifying than fire breathing dragons or the tragedy of a rat not being able to cook, but that’s me. Above all it’s goal was to create a character’s inner world, an attempt to express their personal feelings visually (this is why I employed the use of entoptic phenomenon, arguably the most private images we can see). The self imposed restraint here was to do so without seeing the main characters face, to remove that great shortcut to emotion, and to see if it still worked.
At the same time Serial Entopics is just a whisper. A collection of vignettes, each of which is of personal significance, which I hope will be of some significance to others. As I have constantly stated about it, I can only speak of it’s intentions, I haven’t a clue if it will actually resonate with anyone. If not I hope I haven’t wasted your time.
David OReilly
Berlin 2007