Stop Motion Animation "Tink's Wink"

Tink is a Moon Spirit who stays at post

keeping watch for dreams that get lost

However, Tink wandered off on a trail of cloudberry

And because of his merry

Fun without doing work, He was sent to the factory

Where the all the dreams tell their story

For it’s a dream factory, churning out little yellow

Dream dolls that are mellow

But it is an important job

Something not to sob

Or be lazy about…

Tink gets to work, and he puts a dream doll

In one bigger doll, all on a roll

But, Tink was too curious and it was possibly a bore

So he thought of what he could do more

He let the bigger doll pass

Without putting in the core, just to see

The big doll, hollow, now turned into a bad dream,

With a frozen scream

A nightmare, a ghoul, a goon

In the land of the moon

It slipped away, quickly, up the cloud chute

It was not cute

But terrifying and Tink knew he was in big trouble

If he did not catch the escaping bad dream

It would haunt the realm!

Tink followed the hollowed dream

Clouds were everywhere, thick, thin, foggy, and round

There was no sound

Tink was quiet, and so was the bad one

What Tink didn’t see

The bad one sneaking up behind

And without a warning, the bad dream swallowed up Tink

Trapped inside, there was no time to think!

But to act!

Tink was afraid, and looked around

The hollow round

Thinking how he can escape

But a thought took hold of him, for this was a cape

Peering out of the empty sad eyes, Tink was a Mask

He started haunting the other Moon Spirits, hard at task

But his fun did not last

As he couldn’t get past

The biggest Spirit, who was Mad

For Tink was a bit Bad

He got sent to wash the bad dream, soaping the black away

To see the yellow again, to have it that way

Artist Statement

A character is about finding elements within the self to create, a manifested embodiment, while a world for the character is about mapping the story, and an object in the story directs the navigation of the character within the parameters of that world. The audience follows the navigation, alas, how the story unfolds. Everything, from logic to color, is then placed with intent by the storyteller for the audience – which falls to be you.

“Tink’s Wink” is a story made of dreams, and a dream made of stories. Tink is a brave and curious little Moon Spirit whose task is to keep watch on dreams, protecting little sleeping children. This story explores the sides that balance us: the good and the bad. The concept is that a bad dream is empty, a void that swallows a part of the dreamer, trapping one in fear. If we all are more conscious, we would get out of bad dreams immediately, but we don’t. Instead it traps us.

When we are dreaming we are unconscious of the dream being a dream but as soon as we wake up, slipping from imagination to reality, the dream becomes part of the conscious mind, a story.

Thus, we are all walking stories.

This project started during the MFA Visual Narrative program at the School of Visual Arts with the intent of incorporating one object (Russian Nesting Dolls) and one color (yellow) in the narrative.

Melissa Malzkuhn

MFA Visual Narrative, School of Visual Arts, July 2013, New York City