I figured that at some point in this blog I wanted to talk about the work of Laura Jayne, and last Wednesday’s lecture with Laura-Beth was the moment I knew I had to. Laura-Beth prepared a lecture about Women in Animation, where she mentioned the work of Laura Jayne and other animators using the same kind of animation language.
Laura Jayne’s work became very important to me from the moment I discovered it during her Royal College of Art graduation show, in 2019. Amongst all the amazing films I watched that day, ‘Hot and Tasty’ was the moment I decided I wanted to be an animator and even more, an art director.
As described in First Showing, ‘The animation style in this is super funky and fresh, just a tad wacky, but it’s cool.’ –https://www.firstshowing.net/2019/watch-hilarious-hot-and-tasty-animated-short-about-drunk-friends/ . This describes it perfectly. The energy in Laura’s film is so captivating and joyful. Even though it narrates a literal murder scene, the contrast between the horrid and the euphoric drunken girls turns this into such hilarious experience that ends up becoming quite endearing.
What amazes me the most about this animation is not only the storytelling and the amazing voice acting, but mainly the visuals. The animators’ aesthetic is quite consistent throughout all of her work. From illustrations to films, Laura Jayne’s work screams empowerment and recklessness. Although the animation technique is flawless, the animator pushes the movement to its limit giving it a careless look that makes you go ‘wow, she’s bold!’. I admire the effortlessly ‘agressive’ charm of her work.
I get myself caught in trying to achieve the most beautiful finished product I possibly can, and Laura’s work is a great example to how you can do so much with such little detail. In the frame above, you can clearly tell there’s a quite rough feel to her line. There hasn’t been particular attention to proportion and there’s emphasis on the use of geometrical shapes for clear translation of visual ideas.
Another animator I look up in this sense is Spanish animator Andi Concha, also from RCA.
https://2020.rca.ac.uk/students/andrea-de-la-concha
In this making off, you can tell how Andi choses to focus on the expression of movement and not as much on being anatomically correct.
‘Her work sits within the field of experimental narrative animation. She likes to make her films using very minimal graphic language. She focuses on character design, crafting performances between the characters that allow them to communicate without the use of dialogue.’ -https://2020.rca.ac.uk/students/andrea-de-la-concha
I had the pleasure of watching her film 2.35m at LIAF, this year. Needless to say I was mesmerised by the usage of screen space in this.
Besides Andi and Laura, there are many animators out there adhering to this childish-like look (in the best way possible). #Flattenthecurve is a great example of that.
I aspire to give as little f*cks (pardon my French) as Laura does about making pretty pictures. Although her work is very pleasing to the eye, it’s also very organic and spontaneous. It takes great confidence to do so.
To achieve this, my plan is to learn animation technique as much as possible, become perfect at it and then throw it all to waste and draw what feels right.