Who is Outis?
Outis (transliteration of Ancient Greek Οá½–τις, in capitals ΟΥΤΙΣ, from οá½”τις "nobody" or "no one") is an often used pseudonym. Artists, writers and others in public life use this pseudonym in order to hide their identity
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Outis is a Poet with writer's block. She wants to write a masterpiece so that she will never be forgotten. As she walks in and out of the light she encounters her own reflection in different mirrors, that reveals her reflection to be something ephemeral and intangible. Through her journey towards self discovery she realizes that the reason why she can’t write or create, is because she doesn’t exist at all.
The ephemeral effect in the mirrors
I believe you should make an animated film because you can't make the film in any other way. For me the the technique and the material underlines what I'm trying to convey in the film.
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The idea of effect in the mirror came to me after a session with automatic writing where I wrote the words: mirror, ghost, Death, shadow and broken glass, several times. I knew at this point the film had to be philosophical and mysterious. After I had worked with these words and done some sketching one of my sketches stood out to me. It was a woman looking in a mirror where her reflection was distorted and twisted.
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Stop motion mimics reality. It feels so real because it is real. It's real objects interacting with real light. 2D on the other hand is an illusion, it's capable of transforming and morphing. So in my film stop motion represents what the main character perceives to be reality and 2D represents the existential crisis and her doubt in reality.
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In the next few sketches I focused a lot on the movement of the effect. I wanted it to feel liquid but behave like fire. I was very inspired by Aha's music video "Take on me" especially the traveling shot where the camera pans around to the other side and reveals that on the other side of the window 2D becomes live action and live action becomes 2D.
moodboards
Outis was supposed to be neutral, a bit androgynous and timeless. The turtle neck was something I landed on quite early. Actors wears turtlenecks as a base costume, and it allows them to be neutral and take on many different characters. The suit is inspired by the "Dark Academia" aesthetic.
I wanted the main character to be female, because amongst other things I feel that there are too few women represented in films, history, philosophy and art. The type of film that I'm making would typically star a male as the main character, so I would like to see a woman representing the same traits. Yet she is androgynous and dressed in a suit as a nod to men who has previously starred in this role, as well as trying to make her relatable no matter her gender. When I went fabric shopping I found a beautiful star patterned fabric and I though it was just perfect! It fit's her ambitious and mysterious character.
Storyboards
scene 1
I didn't spend too much time on the first draft of the storyboards, because I knew I was going to work in stop motion. So I could just take pictures of the puppet and the set and make a new, more accurate storyboard with the pictures. However this is my first draft.
In the beginning I played with the idea of making the entire film seem like one continuous shot: Just, the camera moving in and out of the shadows and into the light. This proved to be way too difficult in the time constraints I had, but there are definitely some parts of the film that still carries this idea. Three of the scenes in the film are one-shots.
scene 4
scene 7