Single (animation process, part 2)

This is the intro as I have it so far, but I’ll most likely end up using these images elsewhere in the animation. (Copyright 2021 by Sebastian Certik. All rights reserved.)

Over the last couple weeks, I've been working very hard on Single, my latest animation. In part 1, I went over my inspiration for the project, as well as the process around creating the soundtrack, but today I'm going to show you the progress I've actually made.

Admittedly, this has been a much bigger challenge than I anticipated, mainly because the song is longer than most other music I've had to work with, and the visual concept is much more involved. Although it looked like a decent concept on paper, what I found is that I was beginning to rely too much on stock imagery, which is too vapid and soulless in my opinion. Also, making it a paper cut out animation seemed like a good idea until I tried it, and then I began to notice some serious aesthetic flaws with its construction and movement.

The arrangement of the images is okay, even though they are stock images. I still think I can do better… (Copyright 2021 by Sebastian Certik. All rights reserved.)

T. Peeg is looking a little stiff today. (Copyright 2021 by Sebastian Certik. All rights reserved.)

Going back to the drawing board, I decided to look into using public domain footage from the Prelinger Archives for some sequences. I found a few good films from between the 30s and the 60s that I want to use for the intro, but I still need to figure out where else to use this footage and how much of it to use.

According to The Public Domain Review, about 65% of the Prelinger Archive’s holdings are in the public domain in the United States. (Screengrab from The Internet Archive, archive.org)

All in all, however, I'm very excited about how this process will unfold, mainly because I'm committed to creating a good result even though it has been challenging.