Serenity
Serenity is a handcrafted stop-motion animation exploring the way music can become a place of comfort.
As Serenity moves through familiar places including the office, the gym, the high street and her daily walk, she’s completely immersed in the music playing through her headphones. It becomes her own space allowing everything around her to quietly disappear.
Then that changes once she’s surrounded by people in a nightclub, the headphones are gone. The music that usually grounds her isn’t there and for the first time she’s fully aware of the world around her. Everyone else seems completely at ease, while Serenity struggles to find the same connection.
Have you ever found yourself doing the same?
For some, music is simply something to listen to. For others, it creates a sense of comfort, focus and escape. It has the ability to change how we experience the world around us. Serenity explores that feeling through handcrafted stop motion animation.
Behind the Character
Serenity began as a hand sculpted clay portrait. Multiple resin casts were then created to produce interchangeable heads for animation, with additional clay detailing added before each was hand painted using acrylics.
Her hair was made from synthetic fibres, individually platted and attached to a cap that fits each head. Her body was built from foam around a wire armature, allowing each pose to be adjusted by hand. Every outfit was designed and handmade specifically for the film.
Building the World
Each miniature environment was handcrafted using card, clay, felt and found materials. Every prop, backdrop and set was designed to represent familiar everyday spaces that most of us pass through without thinking.
The locations may feel ordinary, but together they help tell Serenity’s story.
The Animation Process
Every movement was animated frame by frame, with Serenity carefully repositioned between each photograph.
The images were edited and composited in Photoshop before being synchronised to the music, allowing every movement and transition to work in harmony with the soundtrack.
What took just one minute and fifteen seconds to watch represents more than a year of sculpting, model making, set building, photography and animation.
I hope, in some way, you see a little of yourself in Serenity.
