Chosen Nursery Rhyme

Indepth Research

Ring o Rosie

Ring-a-ring o' roses,

A pocket full of posies,

A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

We all fall down

Initial observations:

• "A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down" - Death, plague
• Skipping
• Sounds happy but also sounds dark too
• Roses, the name Rose
• Tissues
• When singing as a child, skipping and falling over, I think of laughter, games and friends
• Children
• Garden and flowers
• Confusion - I don't know what "posies" are

Secondary Observations:

"We all fall down" - fun with friends - playing, joy, dying/death - factual, sad, no more

Skipping - fast - tiring, fun - bonding, brings people together, friendly

Roses - fertile - wild, romance - together

Tissues - sick - unwell, disease, spreading sickness

Children - innocence, inexperienced, honesty

Garden - fertile, growth, ordered

Posies - My confusion because I don't know what posies are

Idea Stage 1: 

The plague: I have heard before that this nursery rhyme is about the plague, so I could play around with that idea or alter it slightly to make it about another disease or about death in general - that everyone will eventually die "we all fall down."

The children's song: Children skipping to the rhyme - it could end happily with the children laughing etc or have a dark twist and mix with the death idea and when they fall, they die also

The Proposal: A girl on a date with her boyfriend (spinning around links to the spinning and skipping of the children's reaction to the rhyme), boyfriend pulls out wedding ring and proposes, the new fiance walks away on the phone talking about the proposal, gets hit by a car or collapses    

Research the Rhyme: 

• The first printing of the rhyme was in Kate Greenaway's 1881 edition of Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes:

Ring-a-ring-a-roses,

A pocket full of posies;

Ashes! Ashes!

We all fall down

• The rhyme has often been associated with the Great Plague which happened in England in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the Black Death in England. Interpreters of the rhyme before the Second World War make no mention of this
• "The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern English versions have given would-be origin finders the opportunity to say that the rhyme dates back to the Great Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a symptom of the plague, and posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and "all fall down" was exactly what happened."
• The line Ashes, Ashes in colonial versions of the rhyme is claimed to refer variously to cremation of the bodies, the burning of victims' houses, or blackening of their skin, and the theory has been adapted to be applied to other versions of the rhyme. In its various forms, the interpretation has entered into popular culture and has been used elsewhere to make oblique reference to the plague
• The Plague was not selective in its victims; both rich and poor, young and old, succumbed - this gives me the idea that anyone can be affected/unhappy no matter what your upbringing or privileges 

Idea Stage 2:

• Flashbacks of a happy couple in photographs, pictures slowly morph into hospital visits, she dies  (could show this with the man visiting her grave), the man then either commits suicide or goes into a deep depression and shuts everyone out
• A man has a girlfriend, a lot of men try to hit on her, the boyfriend gets jealous, he breaks up with her, they are both unhappy (we all fall down)
• "Ashes! Ashes!" -somehow incorporate fire/smoke into the story. (American version says "Ashes! Ashes!" instead of "A-tishoo! A-tishoo!". I wouldn't change the version I am working  on but I think it would be interesting to include it somehow. 
• A family who is happy with life somehow gets caught up in a fire
• A successful business is going bankrupt, they try to hide it from their employees and business partners but go into liquidation, everyone loses their jobs and the business partners are owed money they cannot get back

Research around the Rhyme:
Common Themes: Death, negativity, sickness, everyone in the end isn't happy, everyone can be affected/unhappy, concealment 
Linking to current events/ trends in media/ education/ entertainment: 

• MH370 Malaysia Airlines missing airplane with 2 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations. Went missing on the 8th March 2014.
• MH17 Malaysia Airlines crash over the Ukraine: Killing 298 people on board, a lot of different ages and nationalities on board. The two sides in Ukraine's ongoing conflict (the Ukrainian government and the pro-Russian separatists) accused each other of shooting down the plane while denying their own responsibility. Crashed on the 17th July 2014. 
• GE222 Taiwan's Airlines crash while trying to flight in stormy weather. Kills 47 people and destroying houses below.

How others have interpretative the Rhyme: 
From researching again I couldn't find any other ways people had interpreted the rhyme. The only examples I had seen was the Plague theme and also the positive children's nursery rhyme (children skipping and singing)

Style Reseach:

• Dark
• Silhouettes
• Foggy
• Maybe black and white/ limited colour
• Stop motion look alike (jittery movements)
• Layers
• Sketchy
• Textured

How will I create my imagery:
I am not fully decided yet but I am thinking of:

• Drawing on paper and scanning
• Drawing on Photoshop
• Maybe use Illustrator for a vector influence
• Found imagery that I have altered to make my own (maybe redrawn them or produced my own version of them)
• Most likely a mix of styles to give an informal, messy effect

Text and Font:

I want my text to be subtle so I don't think I will animate it in anyway -however I am open to trying it if I think it will suit the story or style. I want to use single words from the rhyme or segments rather than have the whole rhyme in there. I think this is be used to enforce certain ideas. 

Sound and Foley:
I have found two parts of songs I would like to have in my animation. But I feel these are either creepy or smooth almost haunting soundtracks. I feel like my animation would have to be negative for these soundtracks to fit in. 
Tablo - Home (feat. Lee Sora) 3.40-4.23