Our Finished Animation Project!
It was a challenging project, but we completed it! Our artist statement follows...
Artist Statement
Kelsey Clapp &
Christina Stephenson
Christina Stephenson
The Tale of Two Wolves
For our Flash Animation project, we
created a retelling of a traditional Cherokee tale, The Tale of Two Wolves. We
wanted to animate the tale in such a way that it was reminiscent of how
storytellers from all different cultural traditions share tales. The collaborative nature of this project
meant that we needed to rely on stylistic devices to create a sense of cohesion.
We each cut silhouettes out of
black paper and used them as our characters.
Each of us chose to design one of the wolves in a way that we thought
best embodied their characteristics.
Kelsey animated the “bad wolf,” and Christina animated the “good
wolf.” Our goal was to create distinct
characters, and at the same time, for them to have a similar look and feel, and
with the cut paper, we achieved that. We
utilized a lot of the same background images as well, and relied on a dynamic
color scheme to convey emotion. We also wanted to convey emotion by using
sound.
An appropriate sound was important
to us. We wanted to create an authentic
feel for our story, and so we chose to include a Native American flute
soundtrack. The subtle music successfully
conveys a sense of the cultural setting as well as the emotional feeling we
were looking for.
While we chose a traditional
Cherokee tale, we allowed ourselves ample room to explore how to incorporate
original artwork. We did not want to
simply appropriate images and words from the Cherokee culture, and we tried to
be as sensitive to the fact that appropriation carries ethical consequences. Overall, what we created is a unique
retelling of a wonderful tale.
