The COVID-19 global pandemic has impacted nearly all aspects of our daily lives, including the ways we are able to communicate and what we can do with our time. Our film is a whimsical demonstration of how individuals adapt to change during times of uncertainty, and specifically the importance of finding new ways to stay connected when we are separated. Music and art are also a helpful solution for overcoming the adverse emotional effects of social isolation, as they give us a way to express ourselves without words and can provide an emotional boost even when we are alone. We aimed to connect to this idea by telling our story through original music and visuals, rather than through traditional dialogue.
Music and art have always been a big part of our lives, but it has become even more important to us during these times of isolation. Being stuck at home has inspired our imaginations to run wild, and we wanted to do something we had never attempted before. To create our project, we used only common household items such as glue, Play-dough, construction paper and makeup. We created our backgrounds, characters and audio entirely from scratch. The two aliens in the film were inspired by Alice and Bob, who are commonly used to represent two ends of a communication system.
We wanted to have many animated details in our background, and so we needed to shoot all of the images horizontally. This required a bit of engineering, and involved a contraption to hold the mobile phone in place with a remote device to control it. This was successful in ensuring that our shots were mostly consistent. Due to the nature of stop motion, the main issue we encountered was running out of time; it was difficult to take hundreds of photos and still have time for music and editing.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ExO7E2Ax46YboxbHhY-mGTtVvzXI3uy0?usp=sharing
All contents of the project are original, i.e. only personal experience was used for this project.