Thread
visual development, character design, 2D animation
Thread is an animated short about nostalgia, memory loss and courageous adventures.
Duration ✶ 00:01:33 min
Story & Voice ✶ Indah Hijmans
Animation ✶ Indah Hijmans
Music & sound design ✶ Indah Hijmans
The film was created during the MA Animation at AKV St. Joost (2022).
Storyline
When I tried to remember the point in time when I realised I wanted to be a visual artist, I fell into a pitch black void of emptiness. I found out I could hardly remember anything from my childhood years up until I started studying around 8 years ago. The story of Thread is based on the lack of nostalgia and memories I experience and how that influences my grip on reality. Do I see the world in the way it really is? Do other people actually experience a strong sense of nostalgia? And if so, why don’t I?
In this short, Ariadne is following the red thread of their life into the past. She is passing through places filled with memories, while she's trying to find out where the thread is leading her. On her journey, she is unexpectedly struck by voids in her memory and the end is not what she anticipated.
Character design
The character is wearing a dress made of the same thread she is tracing around. It’s a foreshadowing of how the story will be resolved in the end, while it’s also an analogy of how she is in fact the red thread. It doesn’t matter whether or not her memories have happened in that same exact way, because if it happened inside of her head, why should that mean it’s not her reality?
She is loosely based on the myth of Ariadne, who helped Theseus escape a labyrinth by providing him with a ball of thread so he could trace his way out. Hence the name of the character.
World building
The world of Thread has a shifted perspective, signifying her partial amnesia and lost grip on reality. I experimented a lot with lighting and colours to create the intended atmosphere: the warmth of nostalgia, together with the distress the character is feeling. Ultimately, the colours are less saturated and bright values of the primary colours. I chose to have an overall red-ish lighting, so the backgrounds of the scenes complement the red thread.
Music and narrative
I wanted to evoke a certain feeling by the type of music I composed. The beginning of the music arouses curiosity and expedition, while it turns more and more worrisome as she continues her journey. I based the timing of the animation on the timing of the music to make it a little easier for myself, as I am more experienced in creating tension using music than I do in animation.
The narrative was written from a retrospective perspective of my childhood where I tried incorporating as many specific things as I remembered. It took a lot of rewriting to fit the momentum of the music, but in the end I managed to make it all work together!
