I mainly focused on refining detailed animations, such as the secondary motion of the straw, and tried to anthropomorphize the juice box to better convey its emotions. At the same time, I aimed to make its movement patterns feel more natural, drawing inspiration from human walking rhythms and the logic of a charged jump.
Among all the animations, the one I’m most satisfied with is the standing-up motion. The juice box uses its straw like a cane to support itself while getting up, which I find both interesting and effective in strengthening the character’s personality.
Month: October 2025
The Crow is an experimental animated short that combines AI-generated imagery with dance performance. The film resists conventional narrative structure and instead focuses on atmosphere, transformation, and symbolic movement. Its abstract setting and dark visual tone contribute to an unsettling mood, while the transformation of a human dancer into a crow-like figure explores themes of metamorphosis, hybridity, and identity. Although it draws on recognisable elements of dance film, its use of AI places it outside traditional genre categories.
The meaning of The Crow is closely tied to its form. Rather than telling a clear story, the film uses movement and visual instability as expressive tools. The artist appears to embrace the limitations of AI generation, such as distorted anatomy and fluctuating textures, allowing these imperfections to reinforce the theme of transformation. As a result, the work functions conceptually rather than narratively, encouraging intuitive interpretation.
Process plays a central role in the film. AI is not simply a tool but an active agent that reshapes the original dance performance. By allowing the algorithm to reinterpret human motion, the film highlights the relationship between technology and meaning, where the process itself becomes part of the message.
Formally, The Crow investigates movement, rhythm, and transition. The dancer’s balletic motion is fragmented through AI-generated transformations, creating tension between elegance and instability. Minimal use of space, muted colour, and restrained audio further emphasise the figure’s isolation. Overall, the film exemplifies experimental animation by prioritising process, transformation, and perception over narrative clarity.
I changed my previous creative approach and decided to create a scene inspired by Little Nightmares for this project. I want the atmosphere to feel dark and distorted, with a cold, eerie lighting setup and a monster lurking within the environment. I have explored similar themes before, but only at the 2D stage, such as character design. This time, I aim to bring my ideas to life in a fully realized 3D scene using Unreal Engine.
environment reference：
Planning:
My work:
In the bouncing exercise with the squirrel-tail ball, I focused on the follow-through and secondary motion between the character’s actions and the prop. The ball’s delay, swing, and rebound during the bouncing process provided clear rhythmic references for the character’s movement, helping me better understand the relationship between primary action and secondary motion. By continuously adjusting the bounce height and timing, I realized that follow-through not only enhances the sense of realism but also adds vitality to the overall animation. This exercise made me aware that well-designed secondary motion can enrich action layers and make character movement more natural and expressive.
This week’s lecture focused on narrative structure and film editing as key foundations of effective storytelling. It introduced classical narrative models such as the three-act and five-act structures, highlighting the importance of establishing context, developing conflict, and achieving narrative resolution. Drawing on Paul Wells’ theories of animation, the lecture emphasised the need for creators to understand the language of the medium and to transform observation and experience into engaging narratives.
The editing section examined editing as a primary tool for constructing narrative continuity and guiding audience engagement. Through techniques such as continuity editing, montage, and the organisation of spatial and temporal relationships, editing helps shape narrative clarity, rhythm, and emotional impact. Overall, the lecture demonstrated how narrative structure and editing work together to support clear, compelling, and emotionally effective storytelling, particularly in animation.
This week, we explored the fundamentals of character performance. We learned that acting isn’t limited to human roles – animals, plants, objects, and even something as simple as a ball can become compelling characters through expressive movement and exaggeration.
The key to believable performance lies in ensuring every action serves a clear purpose: conveying emotions, revealing personality, or illustrating circumstances.
Ultimately, successful character acting requires that each gesture and movement authentically reflects the character’s inner nature, making the performance both convincing and engaging.
Here is the first version of my animation. The main storyline follows a juice box that wakes up after a fall, struggles to its feet, discovers its injured companion, and immediately administers first aid.
Sad emotion:
Regret emotion: