Hand Drawing an Animation
Some years ago, after watching an RSA animation about the Divided Brain, I thought it would be fun to make one of my own. Without the use of “doodling” software, I set out my script in a mind map and then proceeded to assemble the elements to draw live. This was the result!
Creativity and Emotion Animation.
Click to get all the sketches and maps
Most of it I still agree with, but, over the past few years, I’ve developed a little more thought with regard to the need for both rational and irrational thinking.
The central idea here though, is first, that we are unable to make any decisions without informing them with emotion or what we might call a “gut reaction” and second emotions are a key element in creative thinking.
Creative thinking is a combination of what the neuroscientist David Eagleman labels, Bend it, Break it or Blend it. We might call this Adaptive thinking, Destructive thinking and Associative thinking.
I like the cooking recipe metaphor from Ayse Bursal of Deconstruction (separating out the ingredients), Attitude (She calls it, Point of View) where you decide on what you will make from your ingredients, Reconstruction, where you put you ideas together and Expression, where you give it some of your own expression.
There are many other descriptions and tools for creative thinking out there, but they all come back to emotional moderation in some way. The difficulty is that in reality, the feedback loops are highly complex and recursive involving perceptions, emotions, beliefs, imagination, assumptions and many other modes of thought. Imagination is our ability to scale questions, the what-if questions, into possible (and impossible) future scenarios.
The Process of creating the video.
Mind Map.
Creation of a (very rough) mind map to sketch out the idea. I have always made mind maps, particularly when I want to work fast and in a non-linear way. This mind map is often very sketchy and very rough and enables me to add ideas as and how they arrive to the relevant branch idea.
Outlining and re-organizing.
Stage two was reviewing the map and restructuring it into a more logical and graphic format. Having got my main ideas down on paper I can now begin to organize it with a view of how I may want the final sketch to look. All this stage does is begin to consolidate ideas and gives me a chance to see what I’m missing or what may be unnecessary. Often, these things become a proposition that can be stated in many different ways. My priority here was to try to get a logical flow in the proposal.
Scriptwriting.
Writing the text for the narrative always takes a few drafts, but helps to review the ideas, the flow, and the logic.
Graphic Organisation.
Making the shape of the sketch. A further stage of organization which allows me to overlay another idea. It should be shaped like a brain. This is a graphic arrangement that should (hopefully) organize the thinking still further.
Sketching.
Making rough and slightly more finished sketches ready for the final live drawing. This is a rehearsal for the main drawing to test out the various elements.
Recording narration.
At this point, I record the narration (not very well, as it was done in my lounge with planes flying overhead). This will give me the timings and the pacing of the animation.
Set up my camera (iPhone) and lighting.
I strapped my iPhone to a broomstick suspended between two chairs on the dining room table. This didn’t work because once I started to draw I found that every movement of my hand showed up in camera shake. In the end, I constructed a double layer of chairs with lots of packing tape to hold it together that was independent of the table. The lighting was every table and desk lamp in the house. Honestly, it was fun trying to find a way to make it work without professional equipment.
Recording the drawing.
This took about 5 hours to do the drawing and, as you will see in the video, involved some food and drink as well. I drew at my pace and occasionally very lightly sketched in pencil before committing.
Assembly.
I don’t have the editing capability here so I gave this to a friend of a friend who matched the drawing speed to the speed of the narrative. I was amazed at how easily the editor made it happen. Sometimes it really pays to get a professional.