Persistence of Vision

Having undertaken to illustrate a children's picture story (that's a separate category from picture book, who knew?), I thought it would be so much easier to make a simple series of 30 images instead of 1500 per minute. How much more time I would be able to spend on each, making it perfect. How intricate and endlessly fascinating each image could be, like the best of those I remembered from childhood. Those which allowed you not only to enter the image, but wander around examining flowers, delicate grasses and textures...and imagine the backstory; look deeper and invent more stories. The liberating ability to include random extras, red herrings and decorative details.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
In fact, I have wildly underestimated the demands of a different discipline; I am struggling not to assume that each illustration must be exactly the same size and shape, filling the "screen" , even though some of them are detailed close-ups and some distant views. The shift from landscape to portrait orientation is easier so far - possibly because coming from painting into animation I found the transition from portrait to landscape was quite hard in the first place.

I failed to anticipate the scariness of trying to draw something well enough to withstand that lengthy scrutiny instead of hurtling past at 25 images per second. Weirdly, this means I am sketching on paper and scanning the sketch in a desperate attempt to get the process going...Not only all of this, but more importantly I have also underestimated the power of persistence of vision. Every image I see in my mind is a "scene" - an animation, and I can't read "the tree was about as tall as a person" without seeing the tree grow upwards, a person peer around the branches and then wave at the reader. Trying to build that sense of movement, of energy...trying to develop the dramatic pace that will match that of the original story...without using animation? Will I be able to complete this project without having accidentally created the e-version, the flickbook, and the interactive animated ebook first??
Watch this space.

Animation Research

So - helping to interview prospective students for the 'comics' degree at Teesside, being surprised by the popularity of one single style of cartoon and the stereotypes of how women and men are represented in them...This has made me decide to do some proper research into gender representation in animation.
The much quoted statement from head of animation for Disney's Frozen - "Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, because they have to go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty" should be obviously irrelevant to most animators outside the BigBoxOffice - because in animation, as in life, women (or girls) are not necessarily pretty...and especially not when they are being crazed, furious, or triangular.
Please, if you are a student, or even if you are not...DO NOT suppose that to make your generic character female you should put a bow in its hair or enlarge its eyelashes. Especially if it is a robot. Instead, observe what signifies actual masculinity and maybe think about making your generic character male by e.g. giving him a moustache.
You will have to work harder to observe whether women and men actually have different facial characteristics and what they are... and to what extent they can be represented in a minimalistic cartoon. To notice whether men and women stand, move, gesture in different ways. And also to consider whether it really matters if people can instantly identify that robot as female or male anyway.

Animated Music Video

Apple Size Golden Clitoris - from the track/ album of the same name...A major challenge...working with an old friend and singer-songwriter Jan Allain on an animated music video. A long track, (over 5 minutes) and difficult to synchronise to the beat - not least because this is working backwards for me  - but made very much easier because I kept imagining Jan's explosive laugh in my ear in the good bits.
A very interesting project , which also involved the challenges of an absence of linear narrative, animating a clitoris, and representing someone else - professionally - through an animated portrait. What do you think of the end result? (Youtube) Beware; apparently its a persistent earworm.

Animated Portrait

This summer our Dean (Gerda Roper) retired, and the media crew decided to make her a video send-off. I thought it would be more appropriate to make my input as an animation So, I made a tiny tribute to her and her big influence on the shape of the School (SAM, Arts and Media). Making a portrait of someone as an animation is a new challenge - not really a caricature, but having recogniseable signs including in this case, expressions and big jewellery. So far, she doesn't seem to hate it!