Part of what I am figuring out as I board out this animated short is how tall the character should be. He is 12 years old and my drawing of him vary a bit as I try and recall how tall I might have been at that age. The look of the character slowly becomes clearer as I get further into the project. By the time I got to the pivotal scene I felt like I had him established. When I go back to ass animation the characters can be refined an put on model which was established on the fly. There ws no time for a prolonged visual development I just had to start and hope it all falls together.
These first shots in the film are fairly contained, but by the end of the film I was playing with some more complex camera moves and effects. I am learning so much ringing this character to life. Timing is figured out based on the cadence of the oral history and in this case I decided it should take about four seconds to step towards the door, grab the handle, pull and take one step inside. I’ll let you know how that works out when I actually animate. Scenes I am animating to start are the close up dialogue scenes since they take time and care. By the end of production with the deadline looming, the time for care might be sacrificed.
Days are from about 8AM to 10PM or later but I haven’t started burning the midnight oil yet. Last night I spent an hour or so researching the case of Emmett Till who was lynched a year before this bus trip. Like George Floyd’s death, his senseless murder galvanized a civil rights uprising. In this film when the character refers to historical moments, Black becomes white and white becomes black.
This film will be shown at Yesterday This Was Home, a Special exhibition on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021 at the Orange County Regional History Center.
The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history. Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.