New Animator On My Radar! (Maybe I Should Stick to Music?)

I’ve long been a fan of David O’Reilly’s animation, as well as his theories of animation aesthetics.  Here are 3  links to understand what I’m talking about:

• http://www.davidoreilly.com/work/pss
• http://vimeo.com/1715318 (which at the beginning borrows from Norman McLaren)
• and http://www.davidoreilly.com/2009/08/basic-animation-aesthetics

HOWEVER — there’s some new guy just coming out of school somewhere in Israel called Eran Hilleli.  He was written up in Motionographer for his outstanding short called Between Bears.  Check it out HERE and don’t forget to click the link and watch a lovely piece.

Eran Hilleli - Between Bears

http://motionographer.com/2010/08/05/eran-hilleli-between-bears/

I’ve got a few ideas for some animations I’d like to do…but they are about 1/4 to 1/2 as cool as this one.  Maybe I’ll let them cook a little longer before I start moving pixels around!

In the meantime, there is a new public library near my place in DC, where I will pick up and read the following books:

http://catalog.dclibrary.org/vufind/Record/ocm57905088

and http://catalog.dclibrary.org/vufind/Record/ocm50948399

I will use these books, plus THESE interesting sounds, to create Music of the Future….even as it exists for you right in the present.

Now…I should perhaps get back to work?

Basic Animation Aesthetics

A little while ago, one of my favorite artists, David O’Reilly, published an essay about basic animation aesthetics.  It struck me as being quite instructive and thoughtful.  I have, in some very basic ways, failed to live up to his ideals in completing my thesis project, but I hope to live long enough to atone for my sins.

The basic message I got out of it is that in creating a world through animation, one must decide on the rules of your world, and stick to them.  He uses examples from his brilliant piece Please Say Something.

An interesting subtext to his essay is that there is nothing wrong with a digital world.  More precisely, nothing inherently wrong or ugly about digital artifacts in computer animation.  In the same way that the artifacts of film are actually quite beautiful (lens flare and flash frames, for example), the pixel, he argues, is also beautiful.  That case is convincingly made by checking out his work.

If you’ve seen the Grindhouse films, the best part of Robert Rodriguez’s film “Planet Horror” was the synthetic film artifacts.  Which is a petty way of highlighting the real core unit of Awesomeness in this art form, which is Story.  Whether you are telling a story, or deconstructing Story, Story is the air we breathe….

Which is why I suspect I should have gone into Radio.

Cheers!

Kristian

The Queen’s English in all its many flavors

I just stumbled upon an interesting site. If you are of a particular bent, this is the sort of place where you might lose many valuable work hours. It is the International Dialects of English Archive. It might be helpful to listen to this when trying to get a handle a new character! Also, nerds just like absorbing catalogs of stuff.

Enjoy: http://web.ku.edu/idea/

By the way…I make no claim that this is the best or a unique resource, so share if you’ve got something cooler!

It’s nice to be recognized!

This last weekend, I had the honor of winning the award for Best Animation: Narrative for my short, “Pac(hyderm) Attack!”. It was also a great evening because I was able to provide all the motion graphics for the awards ceremony — all based on the Visions 2008 Bumper. I worked alongside the talented David Laster, who put together the DVD for the awards ceremony, and Prof. Maher, who gave us technical and aesthetic guidance – generally ensuring that the project went well and that the evening was a success.

There were some other excellent winners, and you can view the work at the American University SOC website. Be sure to check out Brad Lambert’s “Rhinos Rock”. It’s really wonderfully done and extremely funny!

Thanks!
Kristian

iDMAa

I just got back from the iDMAa conference today. I was lucky enough to have my work selected for display. There were several other schools there, and some very interesting work.

My work was an animated short using After Effects, but I saw a lot of other installations that didn’t follow linear narrative forms (or any narrative form), and have gotten a few interesting ideas for next year! I’ll post my animation shortly.