Film Style
We plan to combine live action with a variety of animation: line drawings, rotoscoping, cut-outs, stop action, painted backdrops, modeling and other visual effects. This accomplishes two goals:
Enhancing and amplifying Helena’s fantastical life story and the psychic phenomena that inhabited and surrounded her from a very early age.
Eliminating the need for expensive travel overseas with actors, as well as outdoor period scenes in New York City, for example.
By introducing these techniques early and by carefully and judiciously blending them with live action footage, we hope to achieve an enchanting cinematic vision that blurs the boundaries between what is considered “real” and the life of the mind and the spirit world.
There is a precedent for such techniques: see Apple TV’s Dickinson, for example, and Netflix’s Enola Holmes. Both were incredibly successful and both incorporated animation within live action to convey, in the case of Dickinson, the creative powers of Emily Dickinson’s mind, and with Enola Holmes, the fevered detective work of Sherlock Holmes’ little sister.
Possible Animation Styles
We have been experimenting with different styles of animation. On the left is one that uses animated cut-outs. On the right is a type of rotoscoping of live action. We will most likely use a combination of these two styles, but will also include original animated line drawings, and some CGI mixed with practical camera effects.