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Jessie Flynn

BA [Hons] Animation

My name is Jessie Flynn and I'm a 22-year-old animator and filmmaker from Dublin. I adore all forms of animation but my love for stop motion and experimental animation always creeps up on me. I love how tactile it is and there’s something truly magical about building something with your own hands and then watching it come to life on screen. I'm extremely passionate about storytelling and I love to let the story determine the direction of my projects.

The teaser trailer

This video shows the progression of the paper cutout section of my film from design to shooting. Once the puppets were designed, I would scale the characters correctly for each scene depending on what shelf of the multiplane they’d be on. I’d have to trace the different parts needed to allow the puppet to move, paint those and cut them out. Their edges needed to be coloured in and then I made their hinges and slots using paper and PVA. I shot the paper cutout scenes using a multiplane which I built myself. This is a unit with shelves of glass which allows you to animate puppets on different layers while making it appear that they are on the same plane. It can be especially useful for complicated interactions or camera moves.

I built the puppet of the villain character in my film from scratch. The process and methods were an amalgamation of skills I had learned from a puppet building course I had done in 2019, guidance from my lecturers, and information and tips I found online. This video shows some of the stages of the puppet build. You can see the installation and shaping of his balsa ‘bones’ onto the wire armature, the addition of cotton wool and bandage joints, the addition of his bandage and copydex skin, and finally the final clothed puppet.

With stop motion there can be a lot of trial and error. It’s important to test how both materials and character designs handle movement so that you can adapt and find what works best and moves in the most appealing way. Often I will do small animation tests on my phone to see how certain aspects of the puppet are working and this video is a collection of some of them.

Grad Film

My project is a stop motion film using both paper cutout animation and puppetry animation. I knew that I wanted to work in multiple mediums so this influenced how the narrative structure of my film was developed. Originally I had planned to do 2D hand drawn animation for half of the film but I then decided on paper cutout instead as I thought it was a better fit for my project.

The film is an exploration of the complexity and nuances of villainy. The villain struggles with his execution of the hero. We see past interactions they have had which led up to her execution and watch the villain trying to process what he has done.

I am continuing to work on this film until its completion and I plan to submit it to festivals when it’s complete. Please get in touch if you would like to receive a link to the finished film.

Download my Thesis - Evilution PDF

Evilution - The Progression of Animated Female Villainy Examined through the Lens of Character Design

My thesis was an exploration of the visual language of character design. I looked at how it is used to depict evil and badness in animated films and specifically how this applies to female villains. I undertook thorough research and analysis to find changing trends in the chronological portrayal of evil in animated films. I examined what characteristics code a female character as bad and what this does to society’s perception of women. I identified how the portrayal of female villains has changed as a reaction to this and how our ideas of evil and the villain have changed overall. My thesis research heavily influenced my design process for my film and each of the projects continued to inform the other throughout the year due to their shared subject matter of villains.

If you'd like to read my thesis, a low quality pdf can be downloaded to the left or get in touch with me and I can send on a higher quality version.

Download my Thesis - Evilution PDF

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