Constructing the "whiteness void" inside the machine
During the production, I always go with the flow where I kept adding elements scenes by scene / shots by shots to develop atmosphere. While drawing stills for the 1st version of the animatics, I started collecting video fragments from my my friends around the theme on "letting go", asking them the questions:
Is there a particular moment with any of the distanced relationships you could recall instantly?
Or is any of a moment you treasured and happen to have a digital recording of it?
I was not sure what I would do with it, probably just to extract the sounds from the conversations. Till I drew the shots in the laundry shop scene, particularly the close-up of showing the rotation of the washing machine, I decided to cut the videos into that sequences. It surprisingly added interesting visions and vibes to the theme which ultimately helps express my abstract thoughts in a clear, direct way.
The metonymy of (using) washing machine help me to construct and elevate the expression of, memories with various relationships comes and goes, like the never ending cycle of rotations.
A close-up shot showing rotating washing machine (1st ver animatics)
2nd ver. storyboards
Since the story developed from the act of washing, water has a strong involvement in it. Not to mention that water acquires features of timeless, shapeless, colourless, and flowability which is a clear expression to an abstract ideas on presenting emotions in general. Thus, water as the most strong elements throughout the whole animation.
To keep the scenes where character entering the realm inside the machine link to the reality (laundry shop), I have designed a river/stream filled many of the face-like rocks. After designing the scenes, I just let the characters discover the place by walking towards nowhere, interact with the elements (faces).
It may sounds random but noticing that I intend to keep the character faceless just because I don't feel the needs to show emotional expression, I decided to merge the faces on the stream with the faceless character. It was surprisingly provocative and produced strong visual to this "whiteness void".
After drawing this scenes, it made me ponder the meanings of this act and caused me to interpret my subconscious thinking on designing this scenes. I ended up with an interpretation that, the character is picking up its own fragments (bodily or spiritually) from this streams of memories having with others. It got me thinking,
being influenced by others and the surroundings,
we sometimes lost part of ourselves, such as visions, sounds, and words. It all summed up as our minds and wills.
This surreal sequence was like a how the character taking back its controls of sensations after being extracted from the tangled threads.
The streams of the anonymous faces (1st ver animatics)