Why do I love stories and visuals so?

A feel I would be remiss if I don’t share a little bit about my journey in life; my passion for stories and animated media; and specifically the power they hold.

So here is the story of young Roo, and where this obsession began:

If memory serves, I was about five when my dad and I visited a racetrack for the first time. It was Kyalami, and I believe we sat on the stands parallel to the starting grid. Audi was running a squad of 5 cylinder turbo race cars on the day (similar to the ones in this video).

This clip is of course not mine, all copyright to their respective owners.

These cars became famous for their 'chirping' sound. I would apparently, quite literally, tear up and get goose bumps when they were approaching.

After we went home, all I wanted to do was draw, and with my awkward young hands I doodled what I could remember of the track. The signage, the slalom approaching the grid and of course the Audi race cars. My drawings were terrible, and I had to explain much of it to my dad, but the look on my dad’s face when I showed him my doodle was something new. I had obviously shown my parents hundreds of skateboarding stickmen and one-eyed human eating monsters…but this drawing had a memory, some narrative. This crude drawing of race cars wasn’t a drawing of race cars, it was the story of a very special day; of a boy and his father, and a passion they shared that the rest of the family didn’t quite understand. Two life-long loves were cemented in my young heart.

Then came the nightmares

1992, ‘93 and ‘94 saw a significant impact on my appreciation of games as a vehicle for stories and expression. In ‘92 we saw Dune II, which was a sci-fi game about surviving and conquering a desert world, adapted from the classic Sci-fi Novel.

In ‘94, we saw Warcraft, the game that built a multi-billion-dollar empire. Dune II and Warcraft both meant so much to me in terms of inspiration and escapism, but nothing touched my young mind more than Doom.

This clip is of course not mine, all copyright to their respective owners.

I was too young to play it, and I was warned, even forbade, but I of course I didn't listen. The nightmares that ensued were terrifying, but also fascinating. I learnt as a young boy how interacting with pictures and sound could impact the psyche. I was hooked, and I still don’t believe there’s any medium that can allow a creator to connect with their audience more.

Then a woman changed my life

When Tomb Raider launched, I didn’t understand the hype.

This clip is of course not mine, all copyright to their respective owners.

It was hideous compared to my other favourite games like Mortal Kombat. I didn’t understand the difference between 2D and 3D yet. This ended when I finally, out of boredom and because my brother was curious, installed the demo.

Immersion.

That was the difference. For the first time I felt I wasn’t controlling a character on a screen, I was exploring with her. Not only that, but a female protagonist was a new thing, and with it came a deeper sense of vulnerability (sorry feminists) and an urge to protect her. You’ll see many of my stories have female protagonists. Not only are they more emotional and easier to project emotion onto, but much more fun to design. Men are boring, shirt and pants, muscles or not. If male characters are boolean, female characters are floats. Women are, to me, better vehicles for expression. Even more novel was the subject matter. Where other games were fighting aliens in space, monsters in hell or enemies on war-torn battlegrounds, Lara Croft was exploring snowy caves, upside down shipwrecks and mountains in Tibet. The sense of wonder, isolation and anticipation of a new set was wonderful. Though these clips would have you believe otherwise, the emphasis was also not on combat, but on careful exploration, awareness and puzzle-solving.

Finally, my understanding of animation evolved

‘98. I used to video tape (this was the year 7 PY - pre-youtube) music videos and study them. I adore music videos. The emotion from music punctuated by narrative visuals is an amazing combination. I was never the biggest Pearl Jam fan, but they had just released their ‘Do the Evolution’ music video.

This clip is of course not mine, all copyright to their respective owners.

As soon as the tape finished recording, I rewound it and watched it again, and again, and again. This was the first time I truly felt animation was more than just a vehicle for soppy romanticism and cartoons…it was a means of expression. The statements made by powerful visuals over contentious lyrics was something breathtaking.

And there I was, a young, impressionable teen who wanted to express and connect through stories and visuals.

So ends a truncated version of my journey to animation, and my dreams of telling stories that, hopefully, one day, will influence lives as others have influenced mine.

#narrative #animation #story #meaning