Ryan Woodward

I came across an animator/story board artist name Ryan Woodward today when i found a beautiful animation of two dancers on you tube called Thoughts of you (currently in the film festival circuit - current work). I love the simplicity of it, it looks unfinished yet it works ... similar to the Disney animatics i looked at. Symbolism is used a lot within this animation to portray love and freedom, like when the female spreads out her arms and they are wings, it also portrays a delicate and fragile nature. The female part in this animation seems to be dominating the dance as she moves across the screen and the male chasing or trying to hold on to her. The use of white to portray the female and the way the male is trying to hold her back connotes to me she may have been his lover and she has passed on and this is where the bird wings come into play they may portray her as an angelic figure ... she is free ... maybe she suffered before and now she is at peace. The reason i believe they are lovers is as the two characters come into contact there are symbols to represent the chemistry they share for example at the very beginning of the animation when they first tough a pattern to represent lightning wraps around their wrists connected them spiritually with each other a very obvious symbol for a spark, a passion. I also noticed that the male is drawn in black this will of been used in contrast to define the reality from utopia. I also think the black may have been used to show the pain he is feeling for her and he is trying to cling on to the memory of her hence the way she is dominating the routine. However at the end of the animation you see her colour change to black and as the male figure walks out of shot she is crouching down with heartache and it really makes you question your original thoughts.

"The film has a lot of symbolism that is meaningful to me but i wanted it to mean something to the individual" Ryan Woodward.

The making of 'Thought of you' was very interesting it gives you a bit of information of what Ryan was doing before this animation and what inspired him. I didn't watch the making of till after I had written about how I interpreted the animation and some of the things he says about symbolism as I mention before were spot on! His message was portrayed amazingly well through the symbolism and movement of the human form especially since the figures had no facial expressions!

"I love hand drawn animation, it has life to it, it’s not a mathematical algorithm that computed that, it has mistakes to it, I like that" Ryan Woodward. This is a quote that I made a note of while watching the making of which is exactly how I feel about hand drawn animation, it feels more personal, and it’s straight from the artist.
Another aspect of this piece is when the characters almost morph into different shapes or develops wings it think this will work extremely well as I am animating to music. It will add fluidity to the piece meaning it may not be necessary to cut to another shot.

Here is a short Google Doodle he did working again with Martha Graham (Choreographer) it is so sweet.

'Today's Google doodle honors choreographer Martha Graham's birthday and with animated dancers revealing it, the doodle also showcases the company's push to build a more dynamic Web'. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20061774-264.html#ixzz09Tjd1Tro

Here is another one of his short animations this is called Ha-a breath of life (2009) and this clip is a segment that plays during the night show at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie, Hawaii.
In this animation i again love the simplicity, the use of silhouettes, colour pallet and intricate patterns/markings really does portray that tribal feeling.

After looking at these animations by Ryan Woodward i have realised that to portray the write message to your audience you need to carefully consider your composition, colour pallet and corrects method of animation/filming. This is going to be useful to me in the future as when i start my new project i am going to make sure that all these points are carefully considered because that is what i have been lacking ... creative decision making i have just chosen a colour/font because i thought it looked ok and not had any real thought behind it.