Finally, I've made a new animation! It was really hard to find the time to do around everything else going on, but I'm very happy with the result.

In A Tall Tower:
http://www.matazone.co.uk/animpages/hallow...ation_2007.html

It's a spooky story about a princess locked in a tower for her own good, but not everything is what it seems...

The story of the animation came from a dream, where the whole scenario was even more bizarre, so it took a lot of work to turn it into something that makes some sort of sense. I woke up feeling very unnerved by the dream so I figured there must be something worthwhile in there!

I decided to try a new visual style (as usual) and I think it works well. The idea was that it would be quite quick to make, but I was wrong! It's taken about 50 hours I think.

Brilliant!
And congratulations, doctor!

Hey Doc!

Nice, New, Shiny, Fresh, Amazing Animation!!

Congratulations on achieving your vision of being a Doctor and warm wishes for your next endeavor!

My first reaction was "wow". It is really moving- not as creepy as Something In Throats, but very moving all the same.
Does this mean for Hallowe'en that you will go as yourself? (A mad doctor )

I think teaching year 11 has mushed my brain- I'm not sure I understood it. very pretty though

hmm same here, I'm a bit confused about what really happened as opposed to the story from the princess's perspective, but I liked it. It definitely had a creepy halloween-y feel to it

SPOILERS IN THIS POST, DON'T READ BEFORE WATCHING THE ANIMATION!

What I think happened, although this is only me guessing because I only know the princess's view of things, is that she was misled by an over-protective mother. When the mother knew she was dying she called a man to be the girl's companion and keep her alive. I don't know who the man was or what he was told. The 'holy bean' was some kind of communication device, and the queen may well have used initially, but I think she either died before the man arrived and the princess put her under the bed, or the queen died before the end of the first night.

I think the voices calling for his blood were in the princess' head, and came as a result of the queen's death. I think the princess was aware that the queen had died but was consciously in denial of it. One option is that, during the first night with the man, the princess realised that she had been lied to by the queen. This drove her insane, hence the voices in her head, and after the man had gone she killed the queen - maybe she even smothered the queen while the man was asleep on the first night! Alternatively the queen could have died of natural causes (the presence of hypodermic needles in the house suggests that she was ill) and it was this that pushed the princess over the edge. Another option is that the princess had been insane all her life, which was the reason that the queen kept her locked in the flat, then everything followed on from that. I personally don't know, but these fit the information available to me.

In the original version, the queen was bedridden and the princess went out into the world to find jewels for her. The queen had a mask made entirely of gold and jewels that she always wore, then one day the princess brought a man home and the queen had to hide under the bed - I think here the queen was probably already dead and the princess had gone slightly insane, either due to the death or due to the strange behaviour of the queen. The end discovery and leap to her death was the same. I added the blood aspect of the plot because most old stories are about blood in the end and it gave a reason for there to be the confrontation at the end.

Working with that basic plot, I decided that it would be nearly impossible to keep the strangeness of the situation and the queen/princess aspect making much sense if the princess was going outside every day, so I swapped the roles of the figures and regretfully I removed the jewelled mask too. I liked the mask. It was a really strange symbol, representing folly but also great sacrifice by the princess, not to mention that it is a creepy idea for anyone to wear a mask 100% of the time. Unfortunately, as with most dreams, it just didn't hang together in the original structure so I had to rearrange it.

While making the animation, I had hoped that it would reveal some of its answers to me, but it left me with many questions instead. I do know that there are several explanations of what could have happened, but that's the problem with only seeing the story through the eyes of girl who is either massively misled, completely insane, or a mixture of both.

Definately not as creepy as previous ones, but very pretty to watch. I kept getting distracted by the little spiral patterns in the corners.

I guess it depends how scary you find the idea of your new girlfriend's mother slowly dying under the bed while you spend your first night together, meanwhile the girlfriend is hearing voices and draining your blood. If you're okay with all that then I guess it's not creepy at all

I must say Mata, it definitely got creepier after reading your explanation!

Hey, to each his own, right?....

Loved it. Very creepy, also I really liked the new animating style (though yeah, the spiral-y patterns in the corner were distracting, probably because their color contrasted more with the background than the main drawings). Also excited for these plans for next year (perhaps, another Mr. Snaffleburger animation? )?


And congratulations, Dr. Haggis!

Blimey, there's a blast from the past. Hi Gerb, how's life treating you?

The swirls might have been slightly distracting, but they did mean that there was constantly something animating, therefore I didn't need to put as much work into making the rest of the animation move all the time. If a viewer sees an entirely static page then it looks weird, but it only needs a little bit of animation to look okay - this is why Japanese characters in animation always have something on them that can flap in the wind: three frames of animation later and you can just loop it for as long as you need!

Life's been really great. I'm at uni now, majoring in Russian, which has done wonders for my english >.<, for lack of anything better to do and so I can understand all my Russian friends when they've had a few and get tired of speaking english. I also grew a beard about a month after I saw all you guys in Merry Olde England. What's been going on here?

My point about the swirls was more that the white contrasted a little much with the rest of the animation. It's a really minor thing, though; I *really* liked this style and the drawings themselves.

By the way, what did you get your Ph. D in?

Russian? That would be handy to talk to all my... Russian... frien... Wait. I don't know any Russians.

I'm glad to hear that you're doing well. Growing a beard should be compulsory for everyone studying Russian. Especially the women.

It's funny how learning a foreign language can teach you so much about your own. I have a friend who did French as her degree, and because of it she knows loads more about the technical side of English than I do!

The style of drawing was chosen because I thought it looked cool and might be faster to do than my normal ones. It turns out that it does look cool, but there wasn't really any time saving.

The phud was in the field of cultural studies, some would say that it was English literature, others would argue for it being American studies, but there's a fair point for it being theology, psychology, or possibly gender studies too! The title was 'Hidden Cyberspace: Narrative and Identity in the work of William Gibson'. Essentially it was looking at the impact of technology on modern narratives.

I was being sarcastic about the english bit. My english has gotten *horrendous* and it's become increasingly difficult to form sentences in French at all. Most of the writing I do by hand now is in Russian and so I have started forgetting little things about english script. And sometimes I just start using Russian letters (I recently discovered to my utter amazement, that in fact жenetiкс is not a word).

It's funny; Russians make the 'there are no Russian women, just unbearded men' type jokes too. To Georgians.

Also, that thesis sounds awesome! Gibson must have been great to write about.

*is a geek for still giggling at "жenetiкс"*
I have started to teach myself Russian- so far I can vaguely say hello, my name is etc and read Russian words (although the emphasis on the syllables still confuses me).
My main reason for wanting to know Russian?
So I can pretend to be Russian I don't have a beard but I can be convincing when I try. Also, I wanted to have another vague understanding of a language under my belt.

How long did it take you to become accustomed to handwritten Russian? It's nothing like the printed language! (visually)

Hahahaha, handwritten Russian is the most awful thing ever, especially when you get more into the language. A script в looks like an english script 'f,' which is really annoying in those instances when it's also pronounced like an english 'f' (вчера is pronounced 'fchera') rather than the english 'v' even though in print it looks like a 'b'.

It took me about a month to get used to the handwriting or Russian in general. That's probably cause I have more Russian class (9 hours) a week than I do other classes and my class moves at a ridiculous pace. The grammar can get really tricky, though. Have you studied latin ever? It makes learning Russian a hundred times easier (I know that that makes no sense, but it's true. The two languages are very similar).

And don't worry. The beard comes naturally with learning the language. Just give it time