Animation Project: Jan Švankmajer

Jo
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Jan Švankmajer is a Czech filmmaker and artist. He is a self-labeled surrealist known for his animations. I looked more in to some still images from his work, i found that he does 'surreal evolution'. I found some images that link in to evolution, they're very surreal but are very inspiring.

Here is a piece by Jan. I found this very inspiring because the crow has been skinned down to the bone, but Jan has left the head. I find this very effective because it breaks down 'evolution'. The bird has changed, but still processes a living feature.

Also where there is a egg, it's like Jan wanted the crow to have a final look at it's creation and to see the change going around. The crow is seeing what his baby is going to end up living in when he has gone. 

This inspired me to think about the atmosphere. For example, how backgrounds will change in our group animation like will they slowly change or will change fast. 

 In this image Jan has used different types of bone and historical features, like old shells.

These features build up a dinosaur. This fits in with evolution because the creature has changing bones and parts. Where evolution is one thing changing to another, this has that element, but the creature is basically a collage of different creatures.

Because of the composition of the objects, it's easy to tell that it's a dinosaur, some may have to look twice though.

This image inspired me think to about composition and how we could place our characters.