Experimenting in Animation

I was really inspired by the videos we watched on sand animation by Caroline Leaf. How wonderful that instead of bringing in something expected into her class that day to animate with, she instead brought in a jar of sand and changed animation. It was amazing to watch. I wondered how difficult it was to animate as I watched Peter and the Wolf and The Owl That Married a Goose, and my imagination told me that it was pretty difficult. Yet the movements were graceful, but also limited. With those limitations, Leaf managed to create some pretty remarkable animation. I was particularly enthralled with the movements of the birds in Peter and the Wolf, and with the goose feathers and water rippling in The Owl That Married a Goose. Her use of black and white, which were in a sense the limitations of sand animation, actually became one of her strong points in the story telling. 

While watching Caroline Leaf's animation, I think it is safe to say that we can get more out of them than simply enjoying the story or becoming dazzled by the animation. I think it is important for animators also to see it as a challenge. It is so easy to fall into the notion that everything there is to know about animation has already been discovered. Yet, Caroline Leaf proved that this is not true, and I think that still holds true today. Learn your craft, but do not stop there. Go beyond what it known, and find your own unique way of telling a story! However, that is not to say that conventional styles and mediums of animation are unequal in value. I love all animation, but it would still be cool to experiment more with it!