Ride of Passage

Ride Of Passage from The Animation Workshop on Vimeo.

This award winning animation, created by seven students in their final year is the second animation I looked at for research into. As an animation I had the chance to view at several festivals this year, it came to mind as a good reference to use, mainly due to it's soft curves and purposeful design to not include any sharp edges. The fact that everything is slightly rounded means that when viewing the animation nothing is too harsh, matching the narrative. It also allows you to focus on the vibrant colour and the interesting textures used, especially that of the chameleon.

Animation wise, I really love the expressions in the boys face, and how interesting shot types enhance and focus you to notice this. My personal favourite is when the boy is looking through bushes focusing you further on his facial expression rather than his overall body language. Saying this, his body language is very well thought out, with fluid movements and not showing any signs of stiffness. The animators also leaves time for pauses within his movement, to show him deep in thought, which breaks up the action and really brings the narrative to life.

One of my favourite things about this animation is the mixture of 2D and 3D, where the introduction and the title credits were both done in 2D, but blended nicely into the main section of footage animated in 3D. My favourite addition however is the few seconds worth of 2D animation half way through where the boy imagines him as chief, linking clearly back to the beginning introduction, and separates him further again from the hunters.

Making of Ride Of Passage from Christian Bøving-Andersen on Vimeo.
In this behind the scenes video, one of the students shows all his contributions to the animation, including preproduction work as well as animating in both 2D and 3D. For more of his behind the scenes work here is a link to hit blog... http://christianboeving-portfolio.blogspot.co.uk/p/making-of-ride-of-passage.html