Assignments

Still Artwork

Angela Chessey and Allison Willford

Animation Sequences

Animator

Page

Description

 Jes

2

On two screens: Animated head of actor reciting lines:

 

I'M GOOD HAMLET GI'ME A CAUSE FOR GRIEF*

AH THE WHOLE GLOBE FOR A REAL SORROW*

RICHARD THE THIRD I THE PRINCEKILLING KING*

OH MY PEOPLE WHAT HAVE I DONE UNTO THEE*

I'M LUGGING MY OVERWEIGHT BRAIN LIKE A HUNCHBACK

CLOWN NUMBER TWO IN THE SPRING OF COMMUNISM

SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THIS AGE OF HOPE*

LET'S DELVE IN THE EARTH AND BLOW HER AT THE MOON*

 

Recorded voice of actor; plays simultaneously with actor and overpowers. Can be asynchronous with actor and with each other.

 

5

On all four screens: Animated Ophelia (realistic, or video) reciting lines in foreground; her heart is a clock. Behind her, images as described of dead women, can fade in/out and overlap as she describes. Can be asynchronous with each other.

 

                                            I am Ophelia. The

one the river didn't keep. The woman dangling

from the rope. The woman with her arteries cut

open. The woman with the overdose. SNOW

ON HER LIPS. The woman with her head in

the gas stove. Yesterday I stopped killing

myself. I'm alone with my breasts my thighs

my womb. I smash the tools of my captivity,

the chair the table the bed. I destroy the

battlefield that was my home. I fling open the

doors so the wind gets in and the scream of the

world. I smash the window. With my bleeding

hands I tear the photos of the men I loved and

who used me on the bed on the chair on the

table on the ground. I set fire to my prison, I

throw my clothes into the fire. I wrench the

clock that was my heart out of my breast. I

walk into the street clothed In my blood.

 

Vince 

6

On two screens: Animation as described; Hamlet is live actor in space, not animation or video.

 

The university of the dead. Whispering and

muttering. From their gravestones (lecterns) the dead

philosophers throw their books at HAMLET.

 

On other two screens opposite: images of women from previous scene, now in "frames" on wall as in art gallery; live actor behaves as in art gallery. Images scroll by as if Hamlet is walking past; live actor comes to animation of standing coffin with realistic Ophelia within, pallid and waterlogged (drowned). She opens her eyes, rips open her chest to expose heart/clock, and delivers line.

 

 Gallery (ballet) of the dead women. The woman dangling

from the rope. The woman with her arteries cut

openÉ etc. HAMLET views them with the attitude of

a visitor in a museum (theatre). Out of an upended coffin,

labeled HAMLET 1, step CLAUDIUS and

OPHELIA, the latter dressed and made up like a

whore. Striptease by OPHELIA.

OPHELIA: Do you want to eat my heart, Hamlet?

(Laughs.)

 

Ben/Edgar 

7

On two screens: animation (or video?) of actor waltzing with him/herself, animation of actor is replaced with image of Madonna and child, which scorches and burns from center as if film exposed to heat from behind, grows to yellow-white hot, white-out.

 

Simultaneously on other two screens, actor in black trenchcoat with red umbrella, red balloons floating downward rather than upward. actor bows head and drops umbrella over face, then actor disappears and umbrella is left rolling on floor.

 

 

TJ 

8-12

All screens all fade to swirling computer generated patterns of color - blue and black, to red, brown, black - death and dying.

 

All screens switch to images of TV sets - four different, from modern to fifties style. Each one starts with TV snow, then comes on with war footage: Hitler's speeches, WWII footage of foxholes and planes overhead, Vietnam, Korea, Gulf War - randomly playing, switching between sets

 

slowly zoom in to where sets are gone, video plays in extreme closeup (so that you can see the "tv monitor" scan lines through course of monologue - switching becomes more rapid, occasionally actor's face speaking a line is thrown into rotation (lines highlighted) until at "television" it is the video actor who is speaking, rapid-fire switching between actor's face on line, and war images

Edgar? 

12-13

Actor scatters pieces of photo to ground during lines

 

Video actor does same, dissolves to clip of rotting entrails, maggots, and flies on two screens; other two actor dissolves to animated actor whose parts become cyborg, gradually less human to whirring robotic humanoid figure "mouthing" lines along with live actor

Ben 

13-14

Animated: image of fridge, television, easy chair in enormous room. overlay of cyborg woman speaking Marx in one screen, human woman in another, x-ray in another,

 

THE MAIN POINT IS TO OVERTHROW ALL EXISTING CONDITIONS...*

 

 (need entire text) through to end of IV, as actor delivers lines, picks up axe, and swings at nothing, all images "explode" on swing .... all four screens "cut out" to TV snow, fade to white, blowing "ice age" snow....

 Todd & Brad

14-15

blowing snow from above morphs to gentle sea waves; Ophelia floats into frame as in description, little bit different angle in each screen; picture combination of flood from O Brother, Where Art Thou and tornado from Wizard of Oz.

 

water recedes leaving Ophelia in wheelchair surrounded by debris; figure turns to salt/sand statue; breeze begins to blow debris, blows away salt/sand statue until only white screen remains, then fades to black