The Process

The Concept:

Anzaldúa’s original poem talks about her creative writing process. As a fellow creator, I felt the poem described her watching as the real world passes her by while she creates worlds through her writing. Anzaldúa often plays with the mysticism of her Latinx heritage to create her literary universe. I pulled this mysticism into the visualization of "Like a Spider in Her Web." I did this by referencing the lines about environmental aspects of her writing space, like the rain tapping on her window and the universe she imagines from her bedsheets. While reading the poem, I also sensed a feeling of being trapped while trying to create but, breaking free through the same creations. This feeling led me to create scenes where I blurred the transition from the stuffy environment of the writer's bedroom to the natural environment Anzaldúa evokes at the end of the poem. To help the viewer see what I felt, I wanted to leave them with the partial impression of a magical world on the reality of the writer's bedroom. I did this by creating a mountainside world out of the bed Anzaldúa talks about in her poem. The mountains maintain the same shape as the pillows and comforter on the bed throughout the animation to inform the viewer the fantasy world is not yet a reality.

Storyboards and the Poem:

While Azaldúa’s poem is beautiful, I only choose a few lines to animate to keep within a timeframe of 30-40 seconds and not exhaust what I could do as an individual designer.