Second Child was my first animated film completed in my second year at the UCA, Farnham. It also my first short film with concept, pre-production, animation and post-production work created entirely by myself.

 

 

 

Synopsis

An emotional story about a young girl’s loneliness caused by the family favouritism of her older brother.

 

Treatment

This film is about a childhood journey, evolved from a personal experience to tell a story where more loving attention was paid to the older son than the daughter by their parents. It is intended for any age group, relating to someone who has a family and/or can emote to ever feeling alone, forgotten or left behind.

Strong influences have been found within illustrator Edward Gorey, with his similar detailed sketchy style that focuses on the perspective of young children. ‘Father and Daughter’ (Michael Dudok de Wit, 2000) was another inspiration impacting with the use of delicate black lines on a white background to create a sense of wide space within the film environment.

Second Child is a narrative film, which aims to focus heavily on its story, playing up to the empathy between the audience and the little girl. It tries to create an intrigue with the viewer by concealing the girl’s face, displaying her detachment from the family, to form a distance aesthetically to the viewer, in one sense, yet emotionally drawing them in.

The main feature aiming to be achieved is the design and style of the film, looking in particular at the use of colour and the atmosphere it can create. Attempting to portray this dejected mood of the film, coloured chalk smudges have been used only on the daughter that change depending on how she feels in the scene.

The construction of the atmosphere has also been undertaken in the other interest of the soundtrack. By building layers of sound effect clips, an in-depth setup of diegetic sounds that convey emotion with no background music is hoped to have been achieved. Only natural, everyday sounds mixed with silent pauses were used to help to try and engross the viewer further whilst emphasizing this sense of ambience