Notes on the film
Painted ink washes converge and intermingle on the film’s surface, but the water evaporates to leave uneven pigment deposits. The ink clumps and crackles unpredictably, and the resulting image appears eroded by time. These sedimented washes are paired with direct impressions of the artist’s fingers and lips, endowing the animated figure with a weathered skin. As the animator notes in a video about the production of this film, “the dreamlike and tactile effect of watery paintings evokes a nostalgic feeling of trying to catch old memories.” (text from Alla Gadassik’s curatorial essay “Dots, Lines, Washes: Animating Ink”)
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fine lines and textural strokes embrace the many qualities of ink
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Sea Song embraces the liquidity and translucency of ink to depict an aquatic world filled with quivering tentacled organisms. The film’s underwater creatures include mollusks like squids and snails, whose luminous natural inks have been extracted and exploited by humans for centuries. As they wriggle and undulate on screen, the film’s inky lines and scratches leak beyond the boundaries of the frame into a parallel optical soundtrack of crashing waves and bird calls. (text from Alla Gadassik’s essay “Dots, Lines, Washes: Animating Ink”)
Behind the Scenes
Watch director Sofia El Khiyari expand on the process of making this film in an interview and behind the scenes video uploaded to her youtube channel.
check it out
“Dots, Lines, Washes: Animating Ink”
Shadow of the Butterflies, as well as a number of other ink-based films, are discussed in Alla Gadassik’s curatorial essay, Dots, Lines, Washes: Animating Ink, written for the 2023 Ottawa International Animation Festival.
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