The Lyre Of Orpheus

This is the first project for the Narrative: Forms and Structures elective. I screwed up a couple of bits because I had rehearsed it as a front projection and this ended up being projected from behind, which meant it was all reversed for the audience. Other than that, I think it went pretty well. My decision to use the Nick Cave song restricted me a bit though - I was maybe too tied down to the lyrics and trying to figure out how to represent them all on screen, as opposed to using the song as a framework for my own interpretation. Having said that though, Cave's vocals and the structure of the song do kind of demand your attention and it probably would have ended up a completely confused mess if I hadn't taken their lead...


The Lyre Of Orpheus from Retchy on Vimeo.

I really enjoyed the whole process of this project actually, after much pissing about trying to decide what I was going to do for it. All the preparation was done in about three days, most of which was spent just working out how to tackle each verse of the song. Then I rehearsed it, taped it, and changed the bits that blatantly looked shit. I'll be developing this style, with a different story, for the next project in the module - maybe using cut out animation and incorporating some sort of live element. I think this ohp process would also be really useful for producing quick animatics for other projects. Or maybe not, I dunno.

Other People's Stuff. We had a really cool morning watching everyone else's performances, and we all seemed to approach the storytelling differently, which was interesting. There were a couple that struck me as working particularly successfully - David and his two collaborators used images within images and constructed a kind of dream sequence for Little Red Cap, which was actually relatively complex in terms of narrative structure. I think everyone else went for a fairly straightforward chronological approach, but they still varied enormously in their style and presentation. The other that stood out was the lady (I can't remember anyone's name) who used ash to perform a version of Ashputel (that's Cinderella to you and me). There were some magical moments in her performance, where her drawings seemed to move and animate in front of our eyes, just through the manipulation of the ash she made with her hands.

Even these fairly underdeveloped ideas and presentations were really enjoyable and occasionally moving to watch - there's just something about puppetry that gets to you (or me anyway).