Animations Similar to my Idea

Following choosing the plot. I then spent more time researching animations that were similar to my vision. This way I could look at techniques they have used and gained further inspiration.

Animations using  people on beds are really interesting to me, because they are on a flat surface, so you can make it look like they are doing very surreal things (i.e flying), so its fun and experimental.

Here are some Animations I found:





Animated in Bed:

This is my favourite of these animations, It is flawless and works so well with the music (walks in time with the beat). This animation uses more objects than most, so it uses pillows as clouds/steps and sheets/blankets as steps and a lot of other objects (eg socks as fish). It is very experimental and the action changes a lot and so it keeps you interested.  This animation uses 2 people  and is 3 1/2 minutes long. This is my main inspiration as it works so well with the music, is quite surreal and runs very smoothly.




Bed Stop Motion:

This is another an animation of a girl sleeping and moving around in the bed as she dreams. This animation is only shot from one point of view/angle. In my animation I think I would like to use shots from different angles like in the 'animated in bed' animation. However I did like this one, It had more experimental movement (the bottom of the bed wasn't like a floor) and so the movement was less restricted (looked like she was floating of flying), which is something I liked. A lot more objects were used in this animation, however I think I will keep my animation simple and only use a few objects.




Once apon a dream:

This animation does not look as professional as some of the others, but It's good to look at different techniques for these style of animation. The movement in this sometimes did not look too natural, however I think this is why it worked, because it was surreal. I really liked the bit towards the end where a white outfit goes on top of the girl and then she changes into it. This bit works really well because it looks very smooth and her positioning does not change, which is hard.



Target Dreaming Girl commercial:

This is another professional piece. This piece uses a lot more space than the others-the majority of it is not filmed on a bed. It uses cloth/clothes as objects and uses a lot of colours. This is not as minimalist as the other animations. It includes some quite complex environments and scenes. It is entertaining to watch, and considering it is a minute in length-it has a lot going on for that period of time. Again the quality of this is very good/runs very smoothly. 



Lost Things:

This one is slightly different, as it is not a sequence about dreaming, however it uses a person as the subject and uses similar techniques. This animation uses experimental camera work, it introduces movement (eg panning, which is notoriously hard to do in animations) and also often used a shallow depth of field and so the camera angels and shots change a lot. This animation uses a lot of real objects (where as most of the others I have looked at have used simple objects such as pillows), It is a very busy animation and you cannot look away for a second without missing something.

I really like this animation, It is different to the others I have studied, however it is very pleasing to watch. The colour and tones of this animation also really appeal to me. It is very well edited and is another great piece of work.


These are all animations I really enjoyed. A lot were of a professional standard, however by looking at them and breaking them down, I can try and incorporate similar ideas into my production. It was useful to see how different people's ideas where, even with a similar story. This has helped me to think about my own style.