Last month, as CuriousWorks’ resident visual artist, I spent four weeks in Melbourne working with Shakthi on Overflow – a short animation work for Melbourne Fringe Festival that was projected onto one of the massive walls of the East shard building in Federation Square.
I am also CuriousWorks administration officer. And I love lists. So – I have created a list of Things Aimee Knows After Drawing for 4 Weeks Straight:
1. Animating is possibly the most ridiculously labour intensive pursuit in the world
I had the illusion as a child that being an animator meant that you could swan about in glorious artist filled studios reclining in your ergonomic chair pondering and doodling. You’d be drawing for a living, it couldn’t get much better than that, right? Truth is, animation studios can be one of the most time pressured, intense environments to work in – full of hunched and frantic figures poured over their work.
I’m starting to discover why.
The facts:
For the non-hardcore animators:
one second of animation = 12 frames (ie 12 individual drawings if you’re old-school)
For the hardcore Disney-esque types:one second of animation = 24 frames!
That’s right. When Princess Jasmine bats her eyes at Aladdin – that one second – someone has drawn, coloured, and captured 24 individual pictures!
It’s actually amazing that any feature animations get made considering the amount of work that has to go into them.
2. ‘istopmotion’ is magical.
I love this program. It’s what I used to create ‘Overflow’, it’s very easy to use and quite addictive.
Unfortunately it’s only for macs though. You can find out more on their website. The basic version will set you back about fifty bucks. It’s marketed as obviously, stop-motion animation software (think ‘Wallace & Grommit’ and ‘Chicken Run’) but you can also use it to do cell animation (think Disney’s ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ where pictures are drawn for each frame)
Another useful animation program worth checking out is ‘Pencil’. Best thing is – it’s free!
3. ‘Blu’ will blow your mind.
4. Biologist are ‘growing’ virtual characters so we don’t have to draw them anymore anyway.
Computer animators are working with biologist and neurologist and they’re building animated people from the inside out, with bones, muscles and a nervous system!
5. ‘The Animators Survival Kit’ is the word.
This tome was written by Richard Williams the animation director of ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’. If you want to pursue animation seriously or casually this book will be invaluable. The man is actually obsessed in a way that you need to be if you enter seriously into this field. It’s very practical, he breaks things down very usefully and often waxes inspirational. Highly recommended.
6. Find a dark, quiet den. And stay there.
If you’re drawing and capturing your pictures as you go, sunlight becomes your enemy. Sunlight’s inconsistencies will create flickers and shadows on your work if you let it.
I had arrived at the workspace provided for me by Fed Square in Mebourne, and to my horror, discovered glorious natural light streaming through the broad windows. I asked if there was a dark quiet hole someplace where I, my camera, sketchpad and computer could fit… we found the First Aid room down in the trenches.
It smelt like hospital.
So instead we brought in some big lights around the original light-filled desk to battle the sun somewhat… and my working hours became somewhat like a vampires’.
7. I wouldn’t mind being a bricklayer. (for a couple of weeks….)
At least you’re out in the sun. My dad was a bricklayer. When he finished a days’ work there’d be a whole wall in front of him and that feeling of utterly justified exhaustion from his ample moustache down to his bootstraps. It’s a wall. You can run into it and hurt your whole self because it’s so solid and in fact. You can’t knock something like that down too easily.
At the end of my day, a man I had drawn finally took one full animated step. Just one.
I felt like the proudest mother, I wanted to shout to the world my joy and relief! But it was 4am in an office above Melbourne’s Federation Square. Only the giant SBS TV screen blinked back at me. I had lost track of time sitting the whole time in front of my computer and sketch pad ignoring the numbness creeping through my bum cheeks. On my computer screen I could see my drawing take its first step. I had given birth it seemed – but I wasn’t exhausted somehow – just twitchy. The street sweeping machines whirred away below – pushed by glum, florescent-vested men.
I watched one.
How his feet fell, how his hands grasped and his knees bent… trying to hold in my eyes the precise rhythm of all these things combined in a man – the singular percussion of my unwitting flouro muse-man.
8.This is what happens when you’re an animator: You become a STARER.
You can’t help it.
The world becomes a fresh and infinitely watchable place.
Watching people becomes most interesting.
But you stop noticing the odd looks that people give you.
You stop noticing the “Oi! What the f*** are you looking at?!” from the guy across the street
…but you stare at their lips instead… How might you animate such speech?
…and then you slowly start mouthing out those particular sounds and shapes for yourself:
“ooooii-waaaathafffaaakaayuuuuuluukiiinad”
“fff” = upper teeth on lower lip.
“y” = Keira Knightly’s lips
“w” = slight ‘cats-bum’ effect on the lips.
9. The Kids Get It.
In CuriousWorks we’re working on incorporating animation skills with literacy and numeracy skills for young people. Remember those cool little animations from Sesame Street that would spell out words and numbers? Sure, it’s fine to watch them…. But at CuriousWorks, we think it’s much more fun to actually teach kids how to make them on their own!
Check out what the kids in Liverpool and Roebourne made one afternoon – and keep watching, because there’s going to be more where that came from….
This made us laugh so much … mostly in empathy and a ‘poor us’ type of way! The world of animation truly is a crazy one … addictive and rewarding and debilitating and frustrating and absolutely freaking wonderful all at once … Look forward to seeing your work (can we view the animaton in full – we are far from Melbs at the moment I’m afraid) and hope that you don’t become a bricklayer just yet.
Congratulations and very best wishes
are/why?
Weydegaowemai!
Loved the vids. Would love to see the animation you did in Melbourne- will u be screening that at the launch?
Love,
Mahesh
Hey y’all the actual animation is our feature story this month – check it out at http://www.curiousworks.com.au/2008/10/overflow/