When the Glove Dies
HAND IN GLOVE, BODY AND SOUL… ALLEGRA LIVED LARGE.
13 MIN SHORT FILM | PUPPETRY, 2D AND MULTIMEDIA ANIMATION | ART HOUSE AUDIENCES
In this allegory of bodies and souls, we go through the death process of one Allegra, and how death (like a hand leaving a glove), happens.
About the film:
As a child, I heard that a soul within a body is like a hand in a glove. While the hand is there, the glove is ‘alive’, to all appearances. But when the soul or hand leaves, the container changes, although it looks much the same in many ways.
When a loved one dies, our loving respect for the vacated body is not misplaced, but it is the living presence of our loved one that is so very missing, as we pour our love out to the still form remaining.
My aim is to bring this concept to life, to let people consider… Are there ways to come to terms with our own deaths, and is there a process one can expect?
The movie doesn’t try to be overly spiritual in any particular direction. It leans more towards a story, explaining what vast numbers of people seem to experience at the time of (and to some extent, after) death.
I hope to have conveyed the information lightly but not flippantly. We look forward to finishing the film itself, very soon!
Locations:
1: Hospice ward (original design, development stage)
2:THE CIRCLE ROOM, (Phakalane retreat centre), FOR Allegra’s memorial service.
(Below) Final background by Archie Collier, forming the opening scene.
Visual treatment:
The entire story is to be told as gloves representing bodies, and hands in gloves as souls – or out of them, representing the freed souls. Originally I contemplated using 3D and live-action AND puppetry but that’s too complicated.
To make things less impossible, the animation in ‘When the Glove Dies’ will all be 2D over filmed live-action gloves, played by hand actors. Allegra (after she leaves her body) and her mother who’s already in Spirit, will both be portrayed as hands, using live-action, but not given a graphic treatment like the other characters.
Diek Grobler, an award-winning animator, recommended I watch the following movies, (see below) where hands in gloves are used in exactly the way I had envisaged, but without the body/soul concept as such.
In all of these samples below, the gloves are used as puppets operated by live hands and then digitally or otherwise manipulated.
The Hand by Jiri Trinka
The Vanished world of gloves by Jiri Trnka:
(unfortunately without original soundtrack)
An ad like my Glove story takes place in the real world with two disembodied gloves.
More details about the animation itself:
To circumvent the technical difficulties, I formed a large composite background image from footage filmed at Phakalane, a Hout Bay retreat centre, as a still background instead of the filmed background.
This footage was of high quality, but to keep things simple, the still is to be drawn at a higher resolution still, to allow for zooming in.
Above: Before Allegra dies.
The backgrounds too, in the hand-drawn style I call fotomelt, will combine drawn lines with the original photographic image to produce a painterly effect. The same style will be used to convey depth and form for the characters. The final style is far more painterly than the outlines + colour in the storyboard. Samples can be seen under Characters.
Below: After Allegra dies. (Glove colours and the scene itself have changed in later iterations.)
Above is the scene when Allegra’s soul meets up with that of her mother, who has been patiently waiting on her bed to welcome her to the next world. The surrounding characters are now duller, more translucent, to signify the dream Allegra has emerged from, in contrast to the hands rendered in 2D, souls in the next world vibrate at a higher vibration, much like a different radio station that one has to tune to, to communicate.
The protagonist and her mother as hands:
Near the end of Act 2, the protagonist, Allegra, transforms from a living body (hand inside a glove) to a soul, (represented by only a hand). She joins her late mother who has been patiently waiting to welcome her and they briefly attend the memorial before joining infinity. Everyone else is in 2D, as is their world. (See imagery above.)
The occurrences in the film are all drawn from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, near-death experiences or NDEs as described by thousands of people and their loved ones, as well as a (free to download) e-book, Crossing the Creek, by Michael Holmes.
When the Glove Dies
HAND IN GLOVE, BODY AND SOUL…
ALLEGRA LIVED LARGE.
11 MIN SHORT FILM
MULTIMEDIA ANIMATION
ART HOUSE AUDIENCE
In this allegory of bodies and souls, we accompany Allegra as her soul leaves her body, like a hand leaving a glove).
About the film:
As a child, I heard that a soul within a body is like a hand in a glove. While the hand is there, the glove is ‘alive’, to all appearances, and can perform all kinds of useful tasks.
But when the soul or hand leaves, the container changes, although it looks much the same.
When a loved one dies, our loving respect for the vacated body is not misplaced, but it is the living presence of our loved one that is so very missing, as we pour our love out to the still form remaining.
My aim is to bring this concept to life, to let people consider… How to deal with the fact of one’s death? What is the afterlife like, if we agree there is one in the first place?
Finding out more, may bring comfort and confidence for that final, inevitable transition. The Tibetans are certainly very matter-of-fact about this, and treat the new incarnation of a departed soul as an important event, with rigorous tests to prove that the dear departed has now become the happy arrival.
The movie doesn’t try to be overly spiritual in any particular direction. It leans more towards a summing-up. In the form of a story, it explains what vast numbers of people seem to experience at the time of (and to some extent, after) death.
The stories of hospice carers, doctors, people who study NDEs (Near Death Experiences) and of course, the Tibetan Book of the Dead have many things in common. There is great consistency in what people report.
For instance, there is a simple sentence on a local Landrover here in Fish Hoek. According to my son who asked, it seems the owner had indeed had such an experience and was moved to paint on his vehicle:
‘There is No Darkness There.’
Locations:
(1) a room at a Hospice
(2) the sacred space for the Allegra’s memorial service: Phakalane Retreat Centre, Hout Bay.
Visual treatment:
The entire story is to be told as gloves representing bodies, and hands in gloves (or out) representing the freed souls.
Originally I contemplated using 3D and live-action AND puppetry but that’s too complicated.
To make things less impossible, the animation in ‘When the Glove Dies’ will all be 2D over filmed live-action gloves, played by hand actors. Allegra (when she leaves her body) and her mother who’s already in Spirit, will both be portrayed as hands, as live-action, but not given a graphic treatment like the other characters.
Award-winning animator, Diek Grobler, recommended the following movies, (see below) where hands in gloves are used in exactly the way I had envisaged, but without the body/soul concept as such. In all of these samples below, the gloves are used as puppets operated by live hands and then digitally or otherwise manipulated.
The Hand by Jiri Trinka
The Vanished World of Gloves by Jiri Trnka:
(unfortunately without original soundtrack)
An (Untitled) ad takes place in the real world with two disembodied gloves.
More details about the animation itself:
To circumvent the technical difficulties, I formed a large composite background image from footage filmed at Phakalane, a Hout Bay retreat centre, as a still background instead of the filmed background.
This footage was of high quality, but to keep things simple, the still is to be drawn at a higher resolution still, to allow for zooming in.
The protagonist and her mother as hands:
Near the end of Act 2, the protagonist, Allegra, transforms from a living body (hand inside a glove) to a soul, (represented by only a hand). She joins her late mother who’s patiently waiting to welcome her and they briefly attend the memorial before joining infinity. Everyone else is in 2D, as is their world. (See imagery below)
Above: Before Allegra dies.
The backgrounds too, in the hand-drawn style I call fotomelt, will combine drawn lines with the original photographic image to produce a painterly effect. The same style will be used to convey depth and form for the characters. The final style is far more painterly than the outlines + colour in the storyboard.
Below: After Allegra dies. (Gloves and the scene itself have changed in later iterations.)
Above is the scene when Allegra’s soul meets up with that of her mother, who has been patiently waiting on her bed to welcome her to the next world. The surrounding characters are now duller, more translucent, to signify the dream Allegra has emerged from, in contrast to the hands rendered in 2D, souls in the next world vibrate at a higher vibration, much like a different radio station that one has to tune to, to communicate.
The occurrences here are drawn from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, near-death experiences or NDEs as described by thousands of people and their loved ones, as well as a (free to download) e-book, Crossing the Creek, by Michael Holmes.