Is All of It in Vain? Animation Process (Part 1)
Sheet music cover for So What’s the Use? (1907), the song on which Is All of It in Vain? is based.
What is the point of life? Why are we here? What is the meaning of all this?
These questions have been raised by many throughout history, including Edward Montagu, who wrote a whole song on this topic way back in 1907. His song, “So What’s the Use?” was meant to be a lighthearted and farcical take on the question, but, as someone who is constantly on the lookout for old and obscure songs that can potentially be given new life, I thought this song could easily be adapted to a more serious modern interpretation of the age old question.
I was a bit hard pressed to find someone up to the task, but I eventually found a talented musician who agreed to take on this project. Chantal Celine, (whom I found on Fiverr,) had a very broad vision for how this song could be adapted, and the result was exactly on point. For comparison, I have provided a recording of the original by Billy Murray alongside Chantal’s rendition below.
As for the animation process itself, I wanted to convey the sadness of the overall theme by drawing each frame using a blue colored pencil only. (I’ll show you some examples shortly.)
The first thing I had to do was to create a board-matic. (Which is a storyboard and an animatic combined.) Basically, it serves the narrative purposes of a storyboard, but instead of a conventional storyboard, each image is placed in sequence on a timeline so I can work out the timing of each sequence. Below are a couple images from my board-matic.
“Struggling under the weight of everything and more…”
“It seems like everybody’s got somebody they can love…”
Once I had the board-matic done, and the timing was to my satisfaction, I bought a 100-sheet pad of sketch paper and a blue Prismacolor Col-Erase pencil. (I chose Col-Erase because it helps to be able to fix mistakes without having to make the whole drawing over again, especially when you need to make over a thousand of them!)
Then I got to work. I basically needed to know the sequence number, how many frames are in the sequence, how many times they loop (if any,) etc, and then I knew just how many drawings to make.
Below is one of the (so far) 85-90 drawings I have done.
“Struggling under the weight of everything and more…”
The above sequence is a slow, ponderous walk cycle, with each step being one second long. At 8fps, each footstep took eight drawings. In order to loop it, however, I needed to animate both the left and right feet, which totaled 16 drawings. The whole walk cycle was looped three times, (so he takes six steps,) which meant that I was able to accomplish a 48 drawing sequence with only 16 drawings. (It’s all about time management, people!)
A few of the drawings in said walk sequence.
Not every sequence was possible for me to draw freehand, however. Below is a globe that I traced from a CGI globe that I made in After Effects. (The eye was 100% my creation.)
Maybe it’s kind of cheating, but I knew I couldn’t make an accurate globe animation freehand.
More drawings from the eye sequence.
That is what I have so far. I’ll update you in a while with how the rest of the process is coming along. And as always, I welcome any comments you have to share!
Before you go, I have something I want to tell you real quick: I have a bi-weekly newsletter where I share work updates, illustrations, the latest blog entries, and other interesting stuff. If you’d like to subscribe, click here to go to the sign-up page. I’d love to have you on board!