S2 Comp 1: Artist Research

As odd as it is, i want my animation to be very surreal, one animation while ill related to my ideas, had a lovely animation style, while albeit weird was the video linked below

I like the look as the lines, colours and imagery blend into one another and seamlessly flow into one another.

Another piece of animation i looked at for inspiration was Marvel's Doctor Strange, where Strange first meets the ancient one. the sort of abstract journey that strange embarks really intrigues me and also fits with the idea of the previous researched animation piece

Initial idea and research

While on the bus home from the supermarket, i was listening to one of my favourite songs by the band Rush. The song is 20 minute masterpiece telling the story of a man, living under an oppressed regime, where all art and music is banned and filtered by the high priests. The man the story revolves around, finds a guitar in a cave near the river where he works. He figures out how to tune and play it—enabling him to make his own music: "How different it could be from the music of the Temples!" He decides to perform it before the Priests, believing they will "praise my name" for letting "the people ... all make their own music."The Protagonist performs before the Priests, but they—particularly Father Brown—express not "grateful joy" but "quiet rejection": They tell him that "we have no need for ancient ways", and dismiss the instrument as a "silly whim" that "doesn't fit the plan"—in fact, "another toy that helped destroy the elder race of man." Not believing "these things", the Protagonist tries to explain, "our world could use this beauty; just think what we might do"—to no avail. Father Brown stomps on the guitar and destroys it, and the Priests tell him, "Don't annoy us further."The Protagonist "wanders home" and has a vision of the past and future—he "guesses" it was a dream, but it seems "so vivid" to him: An oracle shows him the way it was before the Federation rose—a society where creativity and individuality flourished, with great "sculptured" works of beauty driven by "the pure spirit of man." He now sees that without these things, life has become "meaningless."The protagonist returns to the cave and broods for "days". He imagines "what my life might be in a world like I have seen", and now considers life under the Federation "cold and empty", with his spirits "low in the depths of despair". He resolves that, in order to "pass into the world of my dream, and know peace at last", he must take his own life—his narrative ending as "my life blood spills over."

While music is subjective, to me, this is one of the best songs ever written, and tells a very powerful narrative, and while the song is a whopping 20 minutes in length, the song never makes it feel like 20 minutes pass while listening to it.

What really peaked my interest however, was the "vivid dream sequence". i feel that this dream sequence part of the song would really be amazing to animate and gives me enough to leeway to animate what i want. i also lends itself to the ideas i had above of the very abstract style of animation that blends one scene into the next.