My Personal Hell, 2019
Rotoscope animation
The title of this assignment in my Time class was Sisyphean Loop, and it was meant to teach how to create animation using the Rotoscope technique. We were tasked with recreating our own “personal hell” – something that if we got stuck doing over and over again, forever, would be hell, just as Sisyphus in the myth of Sisyphus ends up stuck in an endless cycle of having to roll a stone ball up a hill, only to have it roll back down as soon as he reaches the top.
I first filmed three different scenarios that are each a personal hell of mine: repeatedly itching a mosquito bite even though I know I shouldn’t, the strap of my bag falling again after I’ve just put it back up, and having to pick something up when I’m carrying a million things. In the end, I chose the second scenario because I felt it would translate the best in a GIF animation format.
It was a long and tedious process as I had to draw each frame individually on my tablet (based on the frame from the video), and then go through the frames again to add color. Paradoxically, this was a very hands-on process, which resulted in numerous discrepencies between frames - some frames have thicker lines or missing details from the photo. This creates an interesting juxtaposition between the digital world - which is widely seen as producing more “perfect” and sharp lines - and the analog world which gives us permission for imperfections.