Rationale and final ideo

The nursery rhyme I chose to adapt was Little Miss Muffet. After researching this nursery rhyme, I decided to explore the portrayal of the characters. The antagonist, being the spider, is what I found to be the most interesting. In previous versions of the story the spider has always been portrayed as an evil character with an unknown agenda. I decided to reinterpret the message by swapping the roles of the two characters. I did this by giving the ‘spider’ a purpose to scare Miss Muffet, to protect its child.  This relates to a modern audience, through the portrayal of ‘Miss Muffet’ and the message. I have displayed her as a young human-like character, and removed the role of a helpless damsel in distress. This was replaced with a more curious and adventurous character, corresponding with modern children and the way they are now portrayed.

In terms of style I chose a very dark and eerie atmosphere consisting of silhouettes. I found this really brings out the innocent personality of Muffet. The main character being the innocent protagonist, I wanted the audience to see them as a child on an adventure. To accomplish this I gave Muffet a pot in place of a helmet and a stick instead of a weapon. For the antagonist I wanted him to have an initial sense of evil. I achieved this through the sickly green colour choice and ragged sharp teeth. I gave him a personality with the introduction of its child; the child was given similar features to its parent, but without the teeth and the other frightening features. I chose a monochromatic colour scheme, with one shade of green for the monster. This allowed the main character and environment to remain neutral with the dark setting.

For the type in my animation I displayed what I thought were the most important words from the nursery rhyme. I chose to integrate the type into my settings. “Little Miss Muffet” was written on a sign, to introduce the main character. “Sat on h….. Tuffet, Eating” to show how the main character is gender neutral, and have the audience question the activeness of the character. The final word “Scared” which I find summarizes the entire nursery rhyme, and concludes the main characters personality.