Extended Practice: Analysis of completed shot: Mid Shot - sat on Floor

I wanted to talk about the above scene because while I knew it was going to be the hardest to complete, I knew it was one of my most important because it really moves the narrative along so needed to be effective. This scene has also gone on a long journey. From the start of the production of this animation I knew I had a very short amount of time to tell a story that many had given me feedback of being quite complex. Well in this one scene, the narrative tells of the part of the story in what the aftermath of the cop shooting dead the teenager consists of, yet it's all from the point of view of the daughter Lucy so this scene needed to be jarring and confusing to both her and the viewer.

Originally the shot was going to pan around her as people in suits would appear and disappear out of the corners of the screen. The panning served to add to the confusing of the shot and while could have looked very successful, was going to be far too complex to pull off so I needed to drastically edit this scene without completely cutting it out as it is in my opinion essential to the story.

Again with no dialogue, I needed to tell this part of the narrative visually. So I needed to present the idea that the dad was in some sort of trouble and there are multiple legal proceedings going on with important people that look like police officers but it's not ever particularly clear what exactly is going on, it just needs to look like a child is watching the aftermath and becoming ever more confused. In the end I kept the shot static and how I accomplished that same feeling of jarring was by having characters pass in front of the frame and the shot of the room frequently chance from a long shot to a mid shot. Then, without it looking too static, I animated Lucy reacting to every change in the scene. I feel like the final scene is very effective and accomplishes exactly what I set out to do. It took three days to animate but consists of eight seconds of footage so I feel was definitely worth it.