I decided to do my presentation on British animator Rosa Fisher. Here are the slides and my reasearch:
ABOUT ROSA FISHER
- Rosa Fisher is a Cumbrian born, London Based independent animator who has won awards for her animations, such as Best Documentary and DepicT! ‘Random Acts Special Mention Award’.
- Her background and journey to animation came from an enjoyment of designing characters and narratives, and a desire to see her characters move.
- She uses observation from everyday life to tell stories which are playful and engaging, but have underlying social criticism.
- Fisher has a particular interest in how you chose to combine sound with image and the different meanings you can convey with this
- She aims for a deceptive simplicity, communicated through expressive drawing, visual metaphor and sound
PROCESS AND AESTHETICS
- Fisher describes her process as starting with the concept and letting that lead all the decisions going forward, and whilst researching a topic she is also constantly thinking of ways she could visualise complex ideas simply, using an abundance of metaphors
- She uses photoshop to animate characters frame by frame and often utilises different textures such as hand drawn backgrounds on paper using a soft pencil, or a thick painted texture, and even paper craft and stop motion.
- Her most frequently used style showcases a bouncy and exaggerated movement, influenced by classic Rubberhose animation
- Fisher is also heavily inspired by UPA animation traditions, admiring and adopting the way they only include necessary elements in the background to give a sense of the space, and the use of a simplistic, vibrant colour palette
THEMES AND VISUAL METAPHORS
- Fisher has particularly powerful visual metaphors throughout her works, whether it be a half full humanoid in Conformity juice, a slowly colour changing character in ‘Elsewhere’ or a jagged, ill-fitting jigsaw piece in “The Purpose of Friendship”, each character and scene holds weight and purpose to the narrative.
- A strong connection throughout Fishers work is the themes of anti-establishment and non-conformity.
- I personally love how they’re often in the background of the narrative but the visuals really make you aware of the messages being portrayed
- These stills are from 4 different works and I spotted several more parallel visuals throughout other works of hers
CONFORMITY JUICE
- Conformity Juice explores ideas of group identity and social norms.
- In the film, a group of cup-headed humanoids line up to let a tap fill their bodies with a mysterious blue juice, but one holds back, and we see how the half empty humanoid learns to adapt and thrive by themselves, not conforming to the herd mentality that the others seem to have
- Crude line drawings partnered with discordant music and off-beat timing creates an idiosyncratic final piece
- Conformity juice grew out of frustrations that Fisher had felt with groups that prescribe strict sets of rules and ideas, concentrating on group thought rather than the thoughts and opinions of individuals.
- The film is about embracing difference, stepping away from the crowd and discovering what it takes to break the mould.
SENT AWAY
- Fishers most recent film, Sent Away explores the psychological impact that attending boarding school had on Rosa’s father, Tom.
- The film is an insightful analysis of what happens to sensitive children forced to live in strict and dispassionate situations.
- Using yellow as a symbol of self-expression and confidence, the young boy becomes smaller and smaller, eventually enveloping himself in an icy shell to protect himself from his environment.
- Sent Away, despite focusing on the childhood of a middle-aged man, was prescient in the lead up to the UK’s general election in December 2019, in which one of the candidates for prime minister forged his identity in the competitive toxicity of Eton, the UK’s most elite boarding school.
- In fact, the majority of the political leaders in Britain have been through this system which leads to questionable ways the country is governed.
- Fisher was greatly influenced by the research of Nick Duffel in this film, who has written at length about boarding schools, and writes that boarding schools force children to alter themselves and suppress their vulnerabilities in order to cope with the sense of abandonment it brings.
- After the climax of the film, we discover that music saves the young boy from becoming totally lost, and the sound design in the piece rises and falls with the protagonist.
SOUND
- I think the sent away trailer is a good example I can show within the timeframe of how Fisher works with sound to establish a stronger theme and narrative in her works.
- She frequently works with musician Martino Gasparrini who elevates the sound and score, writing all the music and working closely as a duo on the sound design and decisions.
- Fisher wanted to have the sound of the french horn running through the film, used both musically and in more abstract, distorted ways, for example as part of the building drone in the clip I just showed, or as it mocks the rhythmic sound of the cane at certain points, referencing an integral part of the film which was that learning French horn was the thing that helped her father survive the experience and kept him connected to himself whilst being at the school.
- Also prominent in the trailer and throughout the whole film are the beating drums which were used to bring in militaristic connotations whilst building tension.
- Conformity Juice also features a hauntingly hypnotic choral effect from the crowd-following group.
- Fisher’s film ‘Elsewhere’ is a film about the breakdown of friendship due to change and unforeseen circumstances.
- What I particularly like about this film is the use of different instruments to act as voices of the characters, using light, playful clarinet and saxophone, juxtaposed with an unpleasant, obnoxiously over-blown french horn playing the antagonist.
- Even in just 30 seconds at the beginning of ‘Elsewhere’ shows how effectively Fisher and Gasparrini worked together to create a seamless partnership of audio and visuals