Umbrella

• Main Author: Khoo, Siew May
• Other Authors: Hans-Martin Rall
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Visual arts and music::Animation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/59764
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

‘Umbrella’ is an animated film that fuses traditional and digital media to create unconventional visuals. Revolving around an umbrella superstition, the story portrays how different generations have a different mindset towards superstition. The two main characters in this film, a granny ‘Ah Ma’ and her granddaughter ‘Ah Girl’ were experiencing drought in their village. Ah Girl accidentally brought her opened umbrella into the house one day and her grandmother went into a panic mode. There was a myth that was passed down from the older generation that bringing an opened umbrella indoor would offend the sun god. The sun god would be so furious that he would burn down the entire village. Ah Ma strongly believed in this myth and reprimanded Ah Girl for bringing the opened umbrella indoor. On the other hand, Ah Girl realised that bringing an opened umbrella would actually produce drips of water. As the village was in drought, she knew that this would probably solve the problem. After several failed attempts to show the magical phenomenon to her grandmother, her grandmother’s patience ran thin and placed the umbrella out of reach from her granddaughter. This was when Ah Girl decided to give her final shot to open the umbrella and prove to her grandmother that she was not lying. Ah Girl, finally, succeed after an risky attempt. She opened the umbrella and it created a gushing flow of water that eventually, turned the once scorching and bare landscape into a vast plane of greenery. This story tells us how old beliefs can sometimes blind us from attempting things that may actually be beneficial to us. It is always good to keep an open mind and look at an issue from a different angle, with a different perspective.