Experiemental Fish Animation: Pitch & Storyboards

For my 2D & Alternative Techniques experimental animation assignment, I want to focus on the exploration of texture and movement by using beads to animate on hand-drawn backgrounds. Though partly inspired by Ishu Patel's Bead Game (1977), I am not intending to use the beads in the same way, or focus on a non-traditional experimental narrative and theme. Instead I am going to depict a more traditional - though simple - narrative of a goldfish following a small bubble through the lily-filled waters of a lake, employing the beads in a more organic and randomised pattern, whilst still retaining the overall form of the goldfish and the bubble.

To properly render this animation I will be first creating storyboards (see below) and an animatic to guide my filming of the stop-motion beads using a home-made rostrum camera setup, utilising a digital SLR camera and my dining table at home. The soundtrack I will be using in this assignment is Camille Saint-Saëns The Aquarium from his Le Carnaval des Animaux (The Carnival of the Animals) suite. I have chosen this piece of music as the rise and fall of the different sections of the composition I feel best matches the movements of the fish through the water I am trying to depict in synchronious fashion.



1. The fish swims through the space in the lake between the lily pads.


2. The fish swims to the surface of the lake and creates a bubble with its mouth.


3. The fish follows the bubble deeper into the lake.


4. The fish chases the bubble diagonally across the background.


5. The fish follows the bubble in and around the stems of the lilies and out of shot, back and forth.


6. The bubble spirals down to the bottom of the lake, with the fish following.


7. The bubble settles on a small stone at the bottom of the lake.


8. The fish bumps the bubble and it bursts, causing the fish to be sad and ending the animation.