That still however did not stop his love for telling stories, and soon enough found himself joining the Cosgrove Hall. It was through animation where numerous questions were answered for him about performance in storytelling. Such as why have we wanted to tell stories from the very beginning? The answer to that question is that: We want to be noticed, to have our existence noted by others in some shape or form.
"Attention must be paid to such a person!" - The Death of a Salesman:
Storytelling in the end has nothing to do with real life, what matters if the focus on the good bits itself. To play with artifice, structure, to mess around with colors, editing, textures, lighting to tell a story, just... everything. Embellish the actions of the character, to make him/her/it more interesting.
Something artificial is required for one to talk about themselves, an external device that one can talk themselves through. One can never truly speak directly to another, a mask is required. And that is why through storytelling, this 'mask' is required, some form of device. Eg, Mary Poppins is a sort of device, being an outsider that aids in bringing out the issues the Bank family faces. She shows the audience and not just the family themselves about what's wrong with them. Mary Poppins also speaks to her umbrella, by speaking to it, it would seem less odd than talking to herself and voicing her own thoughts aloud.
Again, enjoy the artifice. Do not think of a story in a straight forward manner, a good story will tell us about ourselves. Find the language that makes the audience buy it, Eg, Warhorse was able to set up the language of its story in a clever manner, the play was able to make itself comfortable with the language of its storytelling. The audience invested its story into the horse itself, they did not pretend that the horse is real, but simply a metaphor.
Purves' goal behind this film was to tell a story with a puppet with a single source of light (This is also due to budget issues at the time, unsurprisingly). With the meaning behind it being to survive a trauma and finding a way to continue forward and move on, to embrace change after a trauma. Being the only film by him with no actual cultural history, the music was actually composed before the animation.
The eyes in the animation are the most important thing you can give to a puppet, allowing it to clearly convey its thought processes. While many have believed it the film's main character to be an angel of some kind, he is but only a man with wings (With those wings being the very source of light within this film), a metaphor if you will. To help the audience know where the geography is, the character constantly travels across the screen from right to left.
Due to budget constraints, the puppet is made out of silicon, and was really heavy and couldn't stretch, if Purves was to remake this puppet he would use latex instead. The wings were made of the loveliest duck feathers, with the bone replaced with a 4 jointed armature. They were surprisingly; never actually torn apart as seen in the film. Purves painstakingly tied parts of the feathers with strings to make them appear damaged and torn as the story progresses (Some CGI was also used for the stray feathers that gave a sense of movement and direction to the protagonist's journey).
The imps (Or shadow creatures as Purves had officially stated them to be) conveyed stronger body language due to their lack of sight, while the protagonist constantly appears to the right, they start from the left. There were originally meant to be four of them (To represent the four elements), but once again due to budget constraints, only 3 could be afforded. Which was a blessing in disguise actually as this made it easier for Purves to animate them. Their out of sequence blinking made them all the more creepier along with their jagged movements. Such a contrast between them and the protagonist portrays a light metaphor for various things such as beauty and hideousness, and creativity and lack of.
It is unsurprising that flying and swimming would be the hardest to animate, the swimming scene in the end also shows his embrace towards CGI (Aside from the original message of being able to move on from a heavy loss), swimming shot echoes the flying shot from the very beginning.
And so, in the end, consider everything, even the smallest gesture can contribute to the story. And cut the number of characters down if possible (Bringing it from 4 to 3 imps had been a smart choice).
As the title suggests, this film focused on Russian music composer Tchaichovsky as he goes over his life from beginning to end. The setting was literally framed with a grandiose picture frame (As shown above). With everything filmed in his bedroom, this had been the smallest budget that Purves had ever worked with. While originally wanting to make him play the piano, the lack of it actually liberated the movement of Tchaichovsky.
As the door opens itself, the character is practically being brought into the room, a room of reckoning as he views the entirety of his life. Set up as a metaphorical courtroom, he is practically being judged. While Purves had wanted to kill him off in the end (With the glass of poison seen throughout), he decided to give the character more dignity, allowing him to walk out with his head held up high.
Real letters and notes were incorporated into this film. Everyone he loves he gives a red rose, with the color representing love (And so these were placed on his family, friends and lovers), while the swan represented trauma.
Once again, consider everything, embrace the artifice, enjoy the art of storytelling, find the language of the staging and setting.
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