My approach to this narrative entails the utilization of motion graphics and animation to depict the respondents' insights. I am currently exploring the implementation of kinetic typography and character rigging, facilitated through After Effects and Adobe Illustrator respectively, to imbue the voices with distinctive personas.
By employing these techniques, I aim to craft a documentary that is both captivating and indelible, deviating from conventional methodologies. This unconventional approach promises to render the viewing experience engaging and memorable, offering a fresh perspective on storytelling within the documentary genre.
Animated documentary genre
- animation is an unusual genre to go for in a documentary film, however there are numerous examples where this technique is used frequently (such as TED.ed videos)
- I have looked at some animated documentaries to get an idea of what style of animation has been used and whether of not it uses typography in a same way as the Will Smith doc does.
- this doc used illustration to bring imagery and life to the described events and characters
- it also partially uses kinetic typography to reinforce crucial phrases from the narrator
- this is a great example of using animation for a serious documentary topic such as illness
- it uses the same style and has the same goal (to illustrate events) such as the doc above
- what I liked about this doc, was the use of silence (absence of soundtrack) to give emphasis on the meaning of words and create dramatism
- kinetic typography was used in an interval as a means of stating facts about the illness, during this, silence was also used to create a dramatic pause
Uses in history documentaries
- History Matters is one of the channels which uses animation, V.O and typography to produce short history documentaries
- the animation style is much simpler than the documentaries above
- however, I dislike the V.O and editing pace used in this doc, which I think will not be suitable for my documentary
What I have discovered is that these documentaries are using a very time consuming styles, which in this case I would not be able to reproduce, thus I decided to make my documentary unique by drawing inspiration from my favourite animators on social media.
Illustration inspired by artists
I particularly like the illustration style used by DeeKay (@deekaymotion) for his short animated videos. This style is quite simple and easy to illustrate, as well as being fast to animate. Which is why I want to create my animations inspired by DeeKay's characters.
The idea is to give each participant (answer) an animated character who would embody and represent them and their voice. It is also possible to make that character do specific actions which they describe in their response, however this would be more time consuming.
Overall, I want to use the animated illustration to give the speaker an identity and make it easier for the audience to identify speakers. With the kinetic typography, I am going to reinforce phrases said by the speaker to provide a better visualisation of the topic for the viewer.
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