Cell animation - hand drawn

Original music composition

Personal project

Touch

An animated inquiry into our innate longing for touch.

This film was animated entirely using cell animation techniques through Adobe Photoshop, and a Huion drawing tablet.

Touch (tŭch) v. to become so close together that there is no space between; to become connected with a person; to make somebody feel.

Starting with a concept of my own making, I collaborated with Chipperfield Jones to develop a score with which to explore this topic close to my heart, during the third lock down in the UK.

Director Sentiments: written from a UK perspective (July 2021)

By January 2021, the concept of ‘social distancing’ was now an established standard in the UK, and so many territories across the world. But for the first time in living memory, avoidance of proximity and touch takes on its own moral high ground, well aside from the reasoning of chastity or any other social convention.

From unlocking to re-locking and then unlocking once again. Government mandates move on, and responsibility is thrust back onto the individual. Hugging should be done ‘carefully’. Mask wearing and social distancing is now described as a ‘personal choice’. Yet all is packaged-up with a faintly disguised moral burden for us each to own. 

Never before has a hug with a friend been so weighted - such desire, yet for some, such hesitance. 

Ask a health professional what ‘being careful’ will mean for you and your own circumstance, and they may describe it as a balance between both ‘physical’ and ‘mental’ wellbeing.

An horrific social experiment, and a psychological rollercoaster.

So what has social distancing done to us, and will our innate desire for touch ever be the same again? 

Music Composition - Chipperfield Jones