Cool! I always been interested in animation, but have never given it a go. My knowledge is theoretical having only dabbled, as every sixth grader does, drawing stick figures playing baseball or shooting at tanks over the course of a class notebook. Not too sophisticated :) I like how he has random things coming and going, reappearing and appearing, one from the other. It is, in a way, a sort of representation of how thought works -- I think that's why I like it so much. Take a gander, you may be pleasantly surprised :)
12 Drawings a Day - 12 Dessins par Jour from Denis Chapon on Vimeo.
Also the other day I watched The Pixar Story, a documentary about Disney/Pixar. You know, the guys who brought us Toy Story, Monster's Inc., A Bug's Life, and The Incredibles. I kept seeing the title for it on Netflix and elsewhere but for some reason I hadn't watched it yet. I do this thing where I put off watching something even though I really want to see it -- it's super weird, I know. I think maybe I am avoiding being disappointed, maybe? That is all I can come up with anyhow! Well it turns out it was really great! The documentary gives on a good insight into the Disney world and the challenges that computer animators face, while at the same time putting faces and characters into the works that we have come to know and love through this working relationship of the Disney and Pixar studios. I think that people forget that Disney was first and foremost an illustrator and a story teller. This film delves into the modern problem of bringing cool animation and the story together, while continuing the Disney, and now Pixar, tradition, as well as what it takes to finance, via a young Steve Jobs, such a new and expensive company.
When I was a young kid, around 13 or 14, a good friend of our family gave us our first computer. I immediately became fascinated and started doing designs for my mom's embroidery business. These designs were nothing incredibly difficult or complicated, mostly lettering and simple logos, all by trial and error. I liked it though, and the rigorous problem solving it presented. I remember in the those first days he showed me a program that was, I realize now, a very clunky illustrator. In fact, I think it was one of these programs in which you can't really do anything, but which merely showcases an up and coming technology. He told me that if I were interested in such things, I should let him know and he could give me more information and help about it. My mind took flight that day, imaging the things I could draw and animate with such a thing. Shortly thereafter this friend moved with his family and we lost touch. The computer was something I worked on by myself, learning as I went, like many other things I loved as a child, teaching myself. This is the way it always seemed to go, and even now it is hard to find like minded people even among my most intimate friends. It's not something I feel bad about, for the most part, but it does make me wonder sometimes what I would have been. We all can wonder about what we would have been, if we had taken a different path, I suppose, a symptom of human regret. Every once in a while I come across something like this documentary and it stirs up those feelings of fascination and excitement that I experienced when first I saw it as a child. I like that. It's like Proust's madeleines, and it makes me feel.
1 comment:
Very cool! Love the part when the plane drops "bombs" that are birds...so creative and awesome.
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