Colour or black and white decisions

Colour or black and white decisions.

The issue for the sequence is how to fit the colour.

I have got to make the decision between colour and black and white, the shadow puppet sequence is in black and white and should I make the caption cards echo this and work in a traditional 1890s silent film caption card. Or should I create something more colourful in the way of Toulouse Lautrec’s graphical style?

It’s a case of seeing if it works or not. Black and white caption cards working with black and white shadow puppet footage could be rather dull or it could be very authentic, but I am not trying to make a facsimile of something old. I could adopt some contemporary black and white methods such as the textural black and white elements used in “Jojo in the stars” by STUDIO AKA November 22^nd 2003.

Or as used by the Brothers Quay “ Street of Crocodiles” 1986 where they used dark tones extensively throughout scenes of the animation often this was used to simplify the model making process but also within the actual models themselves black was used. The dark elements within the camera shots create mood and atmosphere for the audience allowing them to imagine what is in the dark partially unseen areas.

Making the lettering.

To make it in Indian ink and then change the black to colours in Photoshop for use in Adobe After Effects.

Photograms.

I have made a series of photograms that animate together, I realise now that I can use these in the caption cards. Caption cards from the 1890’s and beyond used decorative graphical elements in the corners. The photogram animations can be used in small scale at the corners of each photogram. Four in total a different one in each corner. I can also use the live action typographic figure in one of the corners.

The Bonnard style lettering will be made with brush and ink for a fluid instinctive visual approach. I can make these look like they are drawing themselves in an animated way using the Stroke effect and Adobe After Effects.