1. Animation Design
In Rushing Place, animation plays an important role in expressing urban anxiety, social pressure and a sense of losing control. As the characters are designed as expressionless plastic mannequins, I focused on body language and movement rhythm to communicate their emotions and gradually reveal the protagonist’s loss of control over their own life.
The animation combines two different approaches: natural everyday movements and exaggerated physical performances with symbolic meanings. In the kitchen, underground and office scenes, I designed actions such as raising a cup, checking a watch, working and reacting to criticism from a supervisor. These everyday behaviours establish the protagonist’s daily routine while conveying time pressure and workplace anxiety through body posture and movement. As the film progresses, the movements gradually become more surreal. The protagonist is suddenly dragged out of bed and suspended in mid-air, before being pulled, rotated and forced into a series of uncontrolled movements, reflecting their inability to control their own fate.
For the dance sequence, I studied performance videos of aerial acrobats and dancers, focusing on body movements involving suspension, stretching, rotation and imbalance. I combined these references with the idea of the character being pulled by an external force, creating a performance that exists somewhere between dance and struggle. While traditional dance often celebrates freedom and bodily control, I wanted this sequence to express the opposite: a character being dragged by fate, struggling to resist but unable to break free.
2. Animation Production
For the technical production, I combined keyframe animation, motion capture and cloth simulation to meet the different requirements of each scene.
I primarily used manual keyframe animation for movements that required precise emotional expression and performance control. This approach allowed me to carefully adjust body poses, movement intensity and timing, particularly in scenes involving checking a watch, reacting to the supervisor, being dragged into the air and performing the dance sequence. Since the characters have limited facial expressions, subtle changes in posture and timing became especially important for communicating emotions. I therefore spent considerable time refining these performances.
For repetitive movements such as walking and running, I used motion capture data to improve production efficiency while maintaining relatively natural human movement. I then adjusted the animation speed and timing to match the film’s increasingly fast-paced rhythm. The continuous walking and running of crowds in the underground station and city environments also reinforced the repetitive and mechanical nature of urban life.
In addition, I used cloth simulation to create flying sheets of paper and ribbons wrapping around the protagonist. In the office scene, the chaotic movement of paper disrupts the structured working environment, representing the growing pressure and disorder experienced by the character. The ribbons interact with the protagonist’s suspended movements and dance performance, using wrapping, stretching and flowing motions to represent invisible restraints. These elements not only add dynamic visual detail but also transform abstract psychological experiences into a more tangible visual language.
3. Reflection
This animation process helped me understand that expressive animation is not simply about creating realistic movements, but about using motion to communicate emotions effectively. By combining repetitive everyday actions with exaggerated and unbalanced physical performances, I aimed to develop an animation language that gradually shifts from realism towards abstraction.
Combining different animation techniques also allowed me to balance production efficiency with artistic control. Motion capture reduced the time required for basic character movements, manual keyframe animation gave me greater control over emotionally significant performances, and cloth simulation introduced more symbolic movement into the film.
The transition from voluntary to involuntary movement, and from everyday actions to physical struggles, became the central idea behind the animation design of Rushing Place. Through this progression, I wanted audiences not only to observe the protagonist’s increasingly fast-paced life but also to experience the anxiety, restrictions and desire for freedom beneath these movements.