Artist Research ‐ Julia Pott

Julia Pott

Julia Pott is a British Illustrator and Animator currently living in America with varied success through various festivals and has been named as upcoming talent by various print publications in 2012.

Belly

Belly is a coming of age animation featuring 2 animals at the beach and dealing with themes of loss and friendship. The animation follows the story of the elephant character trying to save the brother from the inside of a whale in the ocean whilst being helped by the buffalo like friend. 

The animation seems to have been created in a very unorthodox way, using a variety of media from magazine clippings with varying styles of 2D animation overlayed and merging this each other. The overall aesthetic of the animation is childlike and dreamlike, giving an innocent psychedelic feel to the story. Despite the innocence of the art style, many of the scenes feature death and mutilation which help shock the viewer as the contrast to the rest of the animation helps give extra impact to the situation or theme being approached. 

It seems like the sections of 2D animation have been created with a digital program such as Adobe Photoshop and intermixed with the magazine cuttings and photographs in a different software such as Adobe After Effects, A technique which makes adjusting the final composition and the animation itself a lot easier due to the way alpha channels can be made and used in After Effects. 

By using photos and random shapes in the animation not only does this help influence the nostalgic and childlike aesthetic, but it also helps add depth and texture to the animation, giving the backgrounds of the animation an abstract feel adding to the dreamlike concept. 

The characters themselves seem to have been based on people which Julia Pott has know in her lifetime and by using animals to represent them, helps give a less realistic view to the characters. This is almost like she is looking back on herself and making her memories more accessible by using the characters animation and various frames of the animation to over exaggerate her emotions at the time the memory was created.

The plot seems to follow a basic Voyage and Return plot as the characters go to rescue the elephant characters brother from the ocean however returning without her friend. The scene where the elephant is talking through the whales flesh to her friend and he says "You know I didnt mean it, right?" seems like the character is realising why he said those things and has learned various lessons throughout the "Voyage".

As the elephant is on the back of the dolphin, it uses its thumb to draw a line on its back in the same way which it used to do on the buffalo helping bring the animation full circle.