I Carry Your Heart With Me

Confession time: I used this class as an opportunity to motivate myself to do a project that I've had on the brain for several years.

I've always wanted to be a cartoonist. In elementary school I had several characters that I drew on every scrap of paper I came in contact with. Then, after the Disney animated Lion King movie came out, I was half-determined to be a voice over artist. (I was certain that I could have been a better Simba than JTT) A couple years ago, I made a video valentine for my boyfriend at the time using corn kernels to spell out my message to him. Since then, I've wanted to have the time and dedication to make a longer movie employing stop motion techniques. This class was the perfect instigator. My final project was the perfect excuse to finally do it.

So, anyway. This is the Animation I made of e.e. cumming's poem, "I Carry Your Heart With Me". Click here to be redirected to the video on youtube.

This project consists of 650 + still photographs compiled into a stop motion video. The animation reflects the whimsy and romantic writing style of the poets well as his particular regard for punctuation and line break.

I toyed with line breaks, breaking them across pictures rather than lines. This put emphasis on different words and ideas, a playful literary technique that Cummings used in his poetry. For example, in the 7^th line, e.e. uses “incorrect” grammar to give a single world literal duality. “and it’s you” shares its object with the next clause “you are whatever a moon has always meant”. This is a difficult line to read out loud but in still shots this duality is easy to depict by using the same “y-o-u” letters for both clauses and meanings.

The animation also depicts this work in a very romantic, optimistic way. The “I” of the poem believes he – and his lover – have control over the world rather than the contrary. The paper man exists in a world of free will and flighty, magical romanticism where he spreads the stars across the sky and animals can collect their love like seeds in the wind.

Hemingway and Fitzgerald

It's exciting to be in familiar territory. Fitzgerald was required reading in 8th or 9th grade. Our class stumbled through The Great Gatsby as a group but I gripped onto the story for the frailty and imperfections of the characters and the gorgeous angular details of the Art Deco era. Hemingway and I started our affair in high school as well. Hills Like White Elephants was the beginning of it all. I love his raunchy manly sensibilities and the way he shows non-traditional couples reacting to tragedies of love.

There's talk of these two fellahs being one of the original bromances. I guess they were friends. Met in 1925, I hear. But I'm not sure how tight they were. Plato and Socrates tight? The photo above looks pretty photo-shopped to me. I don't know.

The life of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, was recently captured on stage in an off-broadway production called "This Side of Paradise". (I didn't see this production, but I was lucky enough to hear a little about it while it was up. One of my best friends from high school played Young Zelda: Rachel Moulton. She's fantastic. That's her and Fitzy to the left there. I'm so proud of her.)