Faculty of Art

Experimental Animation

Gabriel Wang

Sonder

A boy comes to the sudden realization of sonder.

“My animation Sonder is a light-hearted 2D animation centering around a boy, a dog, and a bird. The film is my rendition of the act of being struck by sonder as all three of them go on individual yet identical adventures which act as parallels. It explores the idea that while all three of them live such different lives, they all have their individual precious moments. The purpose with this notion is to explain how easy it is to forget about the lives of others around us. I use animals instead of more humans as a poetic way to portray sonder, as I felt this fuels the specialness of precious moments between the characters despite being different species. My goal is not necessarily to simply suggest empathy through sonder, but more so the sudden realization of sonder.The inspiration behind this project came from the philosophies of Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond, stemming from Zen Buddhism. It comes from the notion that strength and inner mastery is the ability to enact positive change in the world, rather than chasing self-greatness and impermanent things alike. This was something that changed me and the way I thought about the world a lot. Rather than making something more personally related to myself, Inoue inspired me to make something about other people. In our world where social media poorly portrays society and where we are all connected yet so distant at the same time, it is easy to forget and be dismissive of the hardships of those around us. By creating this animation about sonder, my hope is to facilitate empathy, compassion, and most importantly, kindness through my film which acts as a reminder.Sonder takes on a simple and flat cartoony artstyle that is more reminiscent of contemporary animation. The characters have a more cutesy design that is meant to reflect similarity among the different species while exaggerating their expression and emotions. The backgrounds are more akin to my personal style of semi-realism or digital matte paintings. Overall for my film, the chosen colours have the tendency of a very bright and saturated palette, serving as a reflection of the intended positivity and light-heartedness of my film and message. Using these bright values and hues is meant as an exaggeration in order to emphasize the importance of both life and lifeforms.The music of my film is an untitled and unfinished piece by an artist that goes by the alias of Txmy. It is an orchestral piece that begins with a crescendo, utilizing predominantly string instruments and chords within a major key in order to sound very adventurous, bright, and emotional. This mixture of emotion was exactly what I was looking for and perfectly caught the intended tone of my film and was given permission for me to use it within my animation.Sonder combines the warm and adventurous music with a bright and saturated aesthetic in order to encapsulate a light-hearted tone, setting the tone for the film that serves as a reminder that everyone has vibrant and complex lives as our own.”