Michael's Art 328 Process

Here's my abstract animation with the one media limitation being hand drawn. Even though it's all vector I used my Wacom tablet to draw the assets:
abstract_animation

The initial concept was to remove the referential sounds of the wood fire burning into a completely different image. At first I was thinking of using found objects and still photographs of a pencils rolling around and breaking whenever a crackle-pop from the fire was heard. After taking the photographs and thinking more on the concept I realized that it was still too literal. The pencil is wood and would make a similar sound when snapped. Therefore it might be too easy to understand the sound you are hearing. I wanted more of a challenge.

This drove me to instead, choose to digitally hand-draw shapes and lines. I thought about bowling balls rolling around for the rumbling noise the fire makes constantly so I drew some lopsided circles. They needed to be lopsided because the low rumbling fire burning sound was not a constant tone but slightly wavering. As these lopsided circles would roll, they give the look of an uneven sound much like the fire. The circles are also semi-transparent so that when they pass over/under each other they show a color interaction much like the rumbles you hear from the fire. I tried to have the circles animate across the stage at a pretty constant speed but at different times so you can relate to the constant hum yet unevenness of the rumbles.

Secondly I noticed there was one odd sound in my recording. This bell dropping sound. So in order to represent it I drew a circle that appears to go up then come down. As it comes down 2 more circles appear from it and all of them bounce off the ground and fade away. I chose this animation because the sound's pitch goes up and then down. On the downward part it has a few different tones; therefore multiple circles.

Lastly I animated different types of lines breaking to reference the crackles and pops. You'll notice in the beginning the first two lines reveal from a beginning point and at the end of the reveal they snap in half. I chose this method because the first two crackle sounds meander around before making the pop sound. All the rest of the popping sounds are quite instant and do not need a lead-in. You will also notice the first two lines are curvy which is trying to mimic the change in pace of the crackle before popping. All the other lines are sharp and vary in weight and size depending on how loud or close the popping sound appears.

All-in-all I am quite satisfied with my abstract interpretation of fire using only hand drawn shapes and allowing the referential sound determine the structure.