The lost memories.

The idea for my animation appeared in my head so suddenly and it was so clear that it felt as if it always was there. Like if it wasn't anything new after all but only one of the many long lost memories in my unconciousness and this one just ''reminded'' me about itself. It is a bit strange how ideas are born inside my head. I usually don't really need to think of the story. Sometimes I wish that I had to, so people could see the slow and developing process...but in my case its a bit strange. I was sitting in the boring room next to the vending machine, while suddenly, out of the blue I got a rhyming poem inside my head. The lines appeared one after another and while they did I quickly took out a piece of paper to write them down. The english was akward and what rhymed inside my head did not when prenouced out loud but it didn't really mattered to me much at that time. I got an idea for the final year movie and I promised myself to work on it once [and if] I will manage to be on the 4th year.

It's been 2 years since I wrote on that scrap of the paper the lousy script-poem of mine and I had since then a lot of other ''epiphanies'' and stories with different characters, developed deeply enought that I could turn them into final year animation. Yet I am stubborn and I will animate the one with the shadow. I feel some sort of sentiment toward this story. Maybe because that as a very small child I felt and thought that my shadow have life on it's own and it just pretends that it does not. There, a small tribute to my childhood's credulity.

...so the story was born suddenly but how were born the characters? Pretty much the same, tho 2 years ago, when I designed them, I drawn my characters a bit worst than I do now. As the time passed I improved in drawing and they look like now a bit more human-like even if they still remained as animals. I always liked the idea of them acting like a people. The Aesop's Fables and polish poems showing human's bad and good sides throught the animal symbolism were things which influanced me during childhood. Not much of the symbolism is putted into the story itself but the choice of the species my characters are is not random. I wanted to make Mary Doyle a fox. There is something feminine about this animal. I find it easy to change it into a ''girl''. The red hair could represent the fox's fur and the long black gloves it's paws. John Smitty [who's name was supposed to be Lemoine but was changed since could be mistaken with Lemony Snicket] is on the other hand a hybrid between the red panda and the cat. There is a polish saying that ''Cat's walk their very own paths'' so maybe that's why John's shadow wanted to finally find his own...?