The Mandala Effect is an abstract piece that combines colour, movement, and sound.

They are all drawn and made by hand as “animation draws the elements of its future works from raw material made exclusively of human ideas, those ideas that different animators have about things, living beings and their forms, movement, and meanings. They represent these ideas through images they make with their own hands” (Wells, 1998, p. 7). 

 

Being an abstract animation, the objective is to produce some effect in people. In fact “true abstraction must have an intriguing spirit, and integrity of its own, and it must suggest more meanings, various, almost contradictory depths and speculations beyond the surface value” (Moritz, W., 1988) However, the main message of the film is live itself and how it moves and transforms, it recreates the growth of a person. Therefore, the mandala starts from cero and ends up in its full creation, as it is passing through the faces of life.

 

Not only that but the mandalas used for this film are all colorful and merge into different colors as “Color is an integral part of the mandala because it expresses your innermost thoughts, feelings, intuitions, and physical sensations” (Fincher, S.F. and Johnson, R.A., 1991). So, for this animation, there is a wide colour palette to express the feelings someone has throughout their life and how they change during their inner growth.

 

Being a cut- out animation the main narrative strategy is Metamorphosis as “it achieves transformations in figures and objects which essentially narrate those figures and objects” (Wells,1988, p.69) and int this specific animation giving it a storyline on how the forms connect with each other and disconnect creating other shapes.

 

Finally, the sound used for this film is inspired by the animation of Norman McLaren Boogie Doodle 1941 as both of the animations use a blues piece and have bright colors, however, the style of both animations is much different as Boogie Doodle 1941 goes for more bold colors whereas Mandala Effect has a more neon theme.

 

 

Bibliography

 

 

• Wells, P., 2013. Understanding animation. Routledge.

 

• Moritz, W. (1988) ‘Some observations on non-objective and non-linear animation’. In Canemaker (ed.) (1988) Storytelling in Animation, Los Angeles: AFI.

 

• Fincher, S.F. and Johnson, R.A., 1991. Creating mandalas: For insight, healing, and self-expression. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

 

 

Filmography

 

• Boogie Doodle 1941