Body Positivity

For our animation project we chose to focus on the social issue of body positivity. It is hard to live in our society today and not judge your body to the cultural standards that the beauty business has created. A lot of men and women of all ages feel unsatisfied with how their body looks and wish they could change with a click of a button. That is where we got the basis of our plot from. A girl and a guy find a factory where they can click a button and change into their ideal self, the kind of body that society deems acceptable looking. In the end we have the guy and girl decline to change their selves because we wanted to send the message that it is okay to look how you do right now and that you don’t have to meet any beauty standard that society pushes onto you.

            Kendra worked on the first few scenes. She chose to depict the the street where they find the newsstand that has the magazine telling them about the body changing factory as a black and white watercolor scene. She then built the newsstand line by line to add an interesting architectural feel to the first scene. The characters then find the magazine and head over to the body changing factory. The factory appears just like the newsstand does, line by line, to create a feel of unity through out the first 45 seconds.

            Kendall drew the characters and created the middle scenes where the characters see what their body could potentially change to. She mimicked Kendra’s background by finding a black and white warehouse and then using the watercolor filter in Photoshop to create unity through out the entire animation. She created the characters to be the exact opposite of what society tells us is attractive in order to show how many changes they would have to go through. Creating changes to the girl’s body was easier considering she has grown up with society’s beauty standards being pushed onto her as a girl. However, thinking of changes for the guys body proved to be difficult and she had to ask the guys of the class what they feel like society demands them to look like. They provided several answers and helped create a ‘society approved’ male character. Kendall is also responsible for the music selection throughout the animation.

            Kym created the last few scenes. She stuck with the background and characters that Kendall had created in order to keep the flow of unity from scene to scene. After the characters see what their body could potentially change to she animated the ray to ask each of them if they wanted to change their body. She then had each character select ‘no’ and changed the background to a colorful happy one as the characters high fived and the ending title, and message of the entire animation, came forth onto the page; accept yourself. Kym is also responsible for creating the intro and credit page, as well as the mind map.