Research

My challenge is to offer design innovative design concepts and possible solutions that would best portray Allingham's lyric.

After reading through Allingham's poems I have decided to pick the poem 'A Seed'.
 

A Seed

See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down,
And through the Winter neglected lay,
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown,
With tiny root taking hold on the clay
As, lifting and strengthening day by day,
It pushes red branchless, sprouts new leaves,
And cell after cell the Power in it weaves
Out of the storehouse of soil and clime,
To fashion a Tree in due course of time;
Tree with rough bark and boughs' expansion,
Where the Crow can build his mansion,
Or a Man, in some new May,
Lie under whispering leaves and say,
"Are the ills of one's life so very bad
When a Green Tree makes me deliciously glad?"
As I do now. But where shall I be
When this little Seed is a tall green Tree?

 I liked this poem because it was one of the more discriptive ones and when I read through it I could easily imagine a story developing in my head.
The poem relates to me as it reminds me of a story my mum told me when I was younger, alot of trees were set near my house and my mum told me that the trees would grow up with me. I often go to look at these trees and have watched them grow bigger each year.
To me, Allingham's poem refers to the passing of time, it creates a sense of sadness as people often reminisce of their childhood and in the end the poet wonders where he will be 'when this little seed is a tall green tree?'

I decided to do a stop motion animation about this poem because I really enjoy those animations and I love how I can make something that isn't real come to life! Here is my first storyboard idea:

 

 

I planned to use real leaves and a real seed and also some salt or something for the snow in the winter scene, but then I decided I was taking away from the whole paper animation so I went on to plan this next storyboard:

 

 

This idea involved cut out shapes and hand drawings to portray the story behind the poem. I went with this idea. Here is an image of all the cut out shapes and sentences I used throughout my animation. I decided to write the sentences of the poem on blocks of paper and then slide them into the different scenes as animating all the writing in each scene would make my animation too long.