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Through my research, I found where mice come from and what they are drawn to. They come into the house through cracks and holes in the walls and hide in dark and hidden places. They are drawn to places with food left out and will likely move on without a food source.

Mice likely started to follow humans 15000 years ago. Attracted to humans as we often settle in one place, and there is always food around. Evidence suggested that mice started to appear as humans began to farm. But new evidence shows that it might have been even sooner as fossils were found in the Mediterranean around early human settlements from 15000 years ago. This is said to be one of the earliest examples of an animal taking advantage of humans, which took place even before agriculture.

As humans, we have a really interesting relationship with mice that I want to explore further with this project.

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I took some pictures of where the mice were likely coming from and where previous tenants had left traps for these mice, which had not worked. I am going to be looking closely at the spaces where the mice come from and write down a record of where they appear and when

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I decided to animate in Procreate and I will be editing and adding sound using Premiere Pro. I will be drawing the backgrounds twice, tracing them so they will be slightly different and then alternating these two images between frames in order to give the animation a sketchy effect. On top of that, I will animate the mice frame by frame using what I have learnt from watching videos of their movement.

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While taking these images I discovered space in my home that I had never noticed before, and I could see why the mice were drawn to these spaces. Since they are drawn to dark places with food and clutter.

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I distorted some of these images in order to further see how mice may look at the same space. I am interested in exploring how the mice see this situation as they are just creatures trying to survive, terrified of humans. We can't escape the idea of pests as wherever humans are they will follow, they have always been around. While they are a nuisance to us how would they see the interactions and encounters through their eyes?

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Since I share my home with these mice, I would like to see how we view the same space and how both of our experiences differ. What events happen that bother the other and what are the reactions to this

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This image is the first background I have drawn, drawn digitally in procreate and based off of my own kitchen. I wanted to include the mess and clutter from my own house to make it look lived in and the colours were inspired by the painting I had worked on previously. I wanted the colours to be fun and playful with big shadows making things appear bigger and more exaggerated.

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I was inspired by recent current events in my life to look into the subject of pests such as rodents that infest our homes. Over the last few months my house has had a mouse problem and this has led me to think about the ways in which we cohabit with animals in cities and how we approach this as people.

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Arietty is an animated film about tiny people, about the size of mice living around normal sized people. They have to live in secret in fear of what these giant people would do if they find out they were there. They 'borrow' items from these other people in order to survive.

They use these giant items and turn them into suitable items for tiny people, for example they take a sugar cube from the house which for them is a huge block of sugar and a needle is used as a sword. This helped me to think about how the mice in my animation would use the objects around them that were perhaps discarded or dropped by the residents of the house. Both this film and what I plan for my story are based on creatures that are secretly living in the home of bigger, more dangerous creatures that pose a threat to them. I want to explore the feelings of these mice and what their potential life is like in a more theatrical sense.

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As I will be animating my outcome, I need to study the movements of mice. There are many videos on youtube that are hours long of footage of mice in houses, I watched these videos with a slow playback speed in order to see how each frame should look.

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Beatrix Potter- The mice hear simpkin outside

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Beatrix Potter- The mice hear simpkin outside

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Beatrix Potters illustrations of mice was helpful for my research. The tale of two bad mice was a children's book about two mice vandalising a dolls house. To see mice in a human space was good for the development of my project, as I am also working with similar concepts. I think that the idea of mice vandalising a human space works with my concept of how they are pests to us and typically do vandalise our homes in a way, although you could say that we also vandalise their space when we destroy their nests when they settle in our homes.

The illustrations were also helpful to me as I wanted to understand the space that they would be living in, usually small spaces in the walls or under the floors. The image above depicts mice in a space that looks like its under the floor in a house, with a group of mice knitting. While I like the idea of giving the mice anthropomorphic characteristics I want my work to focus on the relationship of both humans and mice, keeping their general characteristics natural.

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Mice have been found depicted in art throughout history, through many different cultures. From the subject of mice and rats being used for symbolism in paintings and just for decoration in sculpture.

The painting above by John Everett Millais shows a woman and a mouse, the mouse being the only other being in the room, representing her lonely state. As a whole I think this can say a lot about our relationship with mice as humans, they are always around whether they're on the streets or in our homes they are drawn to us.

In Native American culture, mice had an important symbolic example that their size never stopped them from being a successful species. Mice are hardy animals that can make it through extreme heat and cold, are therefore extremely adaptable, and can find food almost anywhere. This is why they are so prevalent in our society.

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Initially, I wanted to make my animation a stopmotion film. Though through my research and limited time to complete this I decided on using digital frame by frame animation. I made a model to explore the idea of making this a stopmotion project and thought about how I could use my space as a set.

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When searching for sounds for my animation, I looked on sites such as BBC sound effects and epidemic sound. I found many different sounds to add ambience to the film. I found that the sounds I found were not working the way I wanted them too, I wanted more precise sounds that fitted what was going on in the scene. I want to look into making my own sounds related to my own home since that is where its set.

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To start thinking about the story for my animation, I wrote down all of the times we have seen the mice in my house and what happened when we saw them. From this I started to get ideas for the story, I though that I could show some of these events but from the perspective of the mouse focusing on the effect the people in the house have on the mouse, rather than the other way around. I also wanted a moment where the human and mouse would look at each other, I will show the human in a slightly scary unrecognisable way as if the mouse has never seen this type of creature before.

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To get myself thinking about the story, I cut up pieces of paper into small frames and very roughly and quickly sketched out random incidents that could potentially be part of the animation. I then will put these together to make a random story based off of composition.

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For this painting, I wanted to explore a different way to tell the story of our relationship with mice through a painting rather than animation. I was focusing on storyboarding and the narrative I wanted to show and needed to step back to look at how individual images show emotion and tell the story.

To show the overwhelming nature of our homes to mice, as they are very timid animals I wanted to distort what a normal kitchen would look like. To see the kitchen from the eyes of a mouse. This kitchen was full of humans, which to a mouse would not look the same as it does to us therefore I distorted the bodies and scaled up the shoes to make them more intimidating.

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I made this clay model that I could potentially use as a model in a stop motion animation. I used wire to create the shape and allow the body to move and then I made the rough shape i wanted out of paper and used polymer clay to cover it and add details. To take this further I would like to paint and add more details as this is only a rough model but it has some issues, as it is not very moveable and the clay will crack when it dries.

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After I struggled to find sounds that fitted perfectly I decided to try making my own sounds. I thought that since the animation has a sketchy and slightly messy style then home made more rough sounds might suit it more.

To make the sounds I recorded them using my Ipad and a voice note app. I recorded sounds such as traffic from the street outside my house, I dropped boxes to line up with the box dropping in the animation, I walked around to get the sound of my footsteps and I also just recorded random sounds around the house for ambience.

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The goal of this project is to promote and spread awareness surrounding the idea of pest animals particularly mice and what our relationship with these animals has been over the years. Through narrative, I will explore how we cohabit with mice, attempting to see from their perspective and include the impact mice and humans have on each others lives, using historical and cultural references to understand the problem.

The aim is to illustrate and promote humane cohabitation with pests, and to understand them as animals, to promote empathy towards these animals to the general public. Including homeowners, renters, and anyone affected by pests or anyone interested in these animals and our relationship with them. This project will encourage these viewers to reflect on their relationship with nature.

Deliverables:

An animation exploring the narrative of the problems highlighted above with a personal story.

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To use premiere pro I had to do some research in order to learn the software.  I watched youtube tutorials and used my knowledge from the digital classes last year. I learned how to add and edit the sound.

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As part of my research I looked into non conventional ways of animating and telling stories. The animation above is a rendition of The Metamorphosis Of Mr Samsa that was created with sand and paper. I think that the roughness of it gives it so much character and evokes an eerie atmosphere.

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The opening scene was inspired by Hitchcocks 'Rear Window'. I love the introduction to this film and the fact that it tells you so much without saying any words. Thats really my aim for my animation. It is also aesthetically really beautiful.

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Since I am interested in making a stop motion, I researched other stop motion artists and this is one of my favourites. I love the creative use of random items to make the sandwich its visually really interesting.

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I am really happy with my outcome. I have learned a lot and would like to improve upon the skills I have gained even further by making more animations. Next time, I will spend more care with the sound and with my new understanding of the softwares create a cleaner animation.

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Vewn is an artist that primarily makes animations. Her animations are very sketchy, and the perspective is always really dramatic and I love the way she uses the perspective to create tension.