Belly Dancer..

I was waiting for a friend last week at a cool mid-eastern joint in Clark Quay.. funny thing is that we were both waiting in the same restaurant and ended up missing each other.. but there was a belly dancer so all is ok.

mouth Studies

Guest Post - Tom Gasek

When Bill asked me if I wanted to contribute to the Scribble Junkie’s blog I respond by asking if I could write about my book, “Frame by Frame Stop Motion,” that I just completed. He gave me the thumbs up and this is what I have to say.

I have been a puppet / character stop motion animator for over 30 years and have worked with some wonderful directors like Nick Park and Pete Lord, Henry Selick, Art Clokey and Will Vinton. I have run two small studios (Sculptoons and OOH, Inc.) and have become well entrenched in that world. These days I teach at RIT in Rochester New York and I continue to work in the industry in the summers and I produce my own short films in the interim. It’s a great balance for me and somehow I managed to kick out this book on “non-puppet” stop motion techniques. The last animated film I produced called “Off-Line” took me 4 years to complete. That was a loooong time to work on one idea but I had to do everything myself since I didn’t have funds to hire help. I also was obsessed with craft, which is a result of my many years in the commercial industry. I was ready for something a little less time-consuming.

At RIT I teach the character / puppet work but I saw there was an interest and need for non-puppet stop motion techniques that could be accessible to our photography and live action students. These students usually don’t have advanced “art” skills but have great ideas and they use the one most important element that is common to all of these techniques; the digital single lens reflex camera (dslr.) This combination of various filmic skills and the ability to expand one’s technique made this course of study popular among these students. The other appealing aspect of these techniques, which includes pixilation (the animation of people and found objects), time-lapse and “downshooting,” is that they are relatively accessible and elicit results faster than many of the traditional animation techniques. This appeals to many photographers and live action students who want to go beyond their normal expected areas of expertise. My classes in this area are filled with live action students, photographers (who understand composition, editing and lighting) AND animation students. For the animation students these techniques offer a fast almost “sketchbook” approach to frame-by-frame work.

When I pitched this idea to Focal Press they recognized the gap in the market in this area. I couldn’t find one centralized source that covered these topics so after many years of teaching my non-puppet stop motion class I decided to put this book together. When I dug deeper into the research about these techniques I became ever more aware that many artists have been and continue to be involved in these techniques. I interviewed successful artists like PES, Blu, William Kentridge, Terry Gilliam and many more. Their input and mastery of many of these approaches to animation put a bright light on this frame-by-frame work and are included in the book. Music videos, commercials and independent films from all over the world utilize these forms of animation. Animators have stretched the bounds and continue to do so. Although this is not necessarily my area of expertise, I have used these techniques and recognize the importance of applying traditional animation principles. This is one of the areas I explore in Frame-by-Frame Stop Motion. The book is also loaded with observations from me and other artists, it has a series of exercises that will allow readers an opportunity to start right in with pixilation, time-lapse and downshooting with very little equipment (other than the all-important dslr camera.) There are lists of equipment and software that can be used, but ultimately, as in any good filmmaking, your idea is number one. The technical aspects of these approaches can be VERY simple.

Finally, one of the areas that I discuss is “downshooting.” This is a huge area unto itself. This includes cut-out animation, object animation (on a stand) silhouette work, sand and clay animation and much more. The book is an introduction to these areas from process right down to the making of your own downshooter stand. I hope people get excited about these approaches. I think of the old saying “what is old is new.” This is true for all of these techniques but technology has made these areas much easier to work. I feel that there should be a certain element of freshness when you try these animation techniques. You can refine things later on, but have fun . . . and play. Feel free to go to the associated website and see my list of fifty films that celebrate these techniques. There are exercise examples there, lists of equipment and chapter related material that refer back to the book.

Tom Gasek

http://booksite.focalpress.com/companion/9780240817286/

Tom Gasek is an award winning stop-motion director and character animator with over 27 years of professional experience. His credits include animation on Aardman Animation’s “The Wrong Trousers” and “Chicken Run” to Henry Selick’s “Coraline.” Gasek has been involved in numerous projects from features and broadcast work to scores of commercials, many of which he has directed & produced through his own studio. Tom has conducted workshops in various universities around the Northeast including R.I.S.D., Harvard and The School of Visual Arts in New York. One of Gaseks’ commercials for Nickelodeon featuring “The Inside-Out Boy” is a part of the permanent collection at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. He earned a BFA degree in Design at RIT and his MFA at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University in Studio Arts in 2006. His short films have been included in The New York International Children’s Film Festival, The Chicago International Film Festival and the Ottawa Animation Festival. He currently teaches Stop-Motion Character and Experimental Animation, Acting for Animation, Animation Pre-Production and the Business of Animation at The Rochester Institute of Technology. He has just completed a new independent animated short called “Off-Line” as well as a book for Focal Press called “Frame-by-Frame, Stop Motion Animation.”

Shadow Study

Hiroshi Yoshida...

Awesome. Early 20th Century painter and printmaker Hiroshi Yoshida is known in his native Japan as a Western style artist, and his work is very much in demand. Having trained in Western style painting, he carried those influences with him when he moved into traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking, also taking inspiration in subjects from his travels in the U.S. and Europe, as well as India and other parts of the world.

Lip Study

Photos/Public Art by Slinkachu..

 UK artist/photographer Slinkachu's "Little People Project" started in 2006. It involves the remodelling and painting of miniature model train set characters, which are placed and left on the street. It is both a street art installation project and a photography project.

"The street-based side of my work plays with the notion of surprise and I aim to encourage city-dwellers to be more aware of their surroundings. The scenes I set up, more evident through the photography, and the titles I give these scenes aim to reflect the loneliness and melancholy of living in a big city, almost being lost and overwhelmed. But underneath this, there is always some humour. I want people to be able to empathise with the tiny people in my works".

OIAF and HIFF

Caricature of me by Bill

Hey there everybody! I just finished representing two of Bill's films at two festivals and he asked me to share my experiences here on Scribble Junkies.


First up was "Guard Dog Global Jam" at the Ottawa International Film Festival. It was my first time at OIAF and I have to say it was everything I hoped for and more. I won't say that I loved every film that I saw, but being immersed in a community of animators for five days far outweighed any distaste I may have had for certain program selections. I will also say there is merit to exploring what you do not like as much as there is indulging in what you do like. Here are some highlights from the shorts competitions:


I wasn't one for abstract animation until this film. I also love that Steven is holding it down with ink on paper.


As for this one, I just love how smooth the animation is, the timing, and the music paired with it.


This undergrad thesis film played in the same block as GDGJ, so I was lucky to sit on a Q&A panel with Caleb the next morning. He is bright, thoughtful, and is really engaged with the process of making hand-drawn animation.


Also, a welcomed moment of levity from Danny Dresden.


This past weekend I accompanied "The Flying House" at The Hamptons International Film Festival. Centered around East Hampton, the festival boasts multiple red carpets, complimentary hor d'oeuvres and glasses of wine, and programming that couldn't have been any more different than Ottawa. Not that I expected them to be at all similar, and also not that I've been to so many festivals as to be able to draw comparisons, so instead I'd like to discuss the matter of shorts: live action vs. animation.

After attending a block of shorts, it seemed to me that (at least in the case of this program) the filmmakers all dealt with "real life" situations to match their "real life" mode of visual storytelling. With the exception of the one animated piece, they all dealt with the themes of parenting, morality, and youth. Each story was uniquely executed, and very much had an individual style, genre and "voice", but it left me wondering if an animated short would ever be "popular" with the same content. I'm not saying that it should or should not, but more so thinking about the inherent differences in the mediums leading to differences in the end products.

I think one attraction towards live action is that the director is not representing people going through life, the actors are people going through life (as far as the audience is concerned). This allows them to be more immediately accessible so the writer can just "dive right in". Animation offers a limitless playground, where anything from complete control or lack of control can be employed to provide a more expressive representational approach to the same themes. As animated filmmakers, we have to work to engineer the suspension of disbelief, whereas live action can easily be accepted as "real." This, to me, can be sighted as a reason (amongst many that I won't go into here) for the difference in content that I experienced between Ottawa and the Hamptons.

I had trouble hunting down videos of the shorts, but the program I'm referring to can be found here.

I would like to thank both festivals and their wonderful staff members for their generous hospitality and for offering films that, like it or not, showcase how we continue to address the world with our visual storytelling.

L shape Face

Singapore Legend.. Chan Chang How

or as I like to say.. Chan Chang How does he do it? Epic work from a master of ink and water color. Enjoy.

Shadow Studies

Naked Butt

Lincoln Center

I just completed a film and art presentation at the prestigious Museum of Modern Art. Unfortunately, it was only for "Film Plus" members, so I couldn't really publicize the event. It wasn't a packed house but they really loved what they saw. I want to thank Raj and Jenny for their wonderful support.

I mention this because TOMORROW, Saturday the 15th, I'm doing a similar event at the Film Society of Lincoln Center at 7:00pm. This event is FREE and open to the public, so if you missed out on MOMA, this is a great way to see my show. It's mainly to publicize my big Rizzoli book, "Independently Animated: Bill Plympton"; I'll be showing artwork from it and signing books. I'll also be showing some of my brand new shorts, plus a clip from Alexia Anastasio's doc on me "Adventures in Plymptoons!"

So come one, come all - get a sketch, see some cool animation, all for free!

Patrick Smith Skate Decks at the Lyman Allyn Museum..

Two of my painted skate decks are in a group museum show at the Lyman Allyn Museum, New London CT..  Thanks to the ultra legit Wampum Skate shop, an aesthetically fused concept by skater and Montauk local, Lennon Ficalora.  I have mixed feelings about the ongoing fad of artists that are not connected to skate culture designing decks for gallery shows, that's why Wampum resonates with truth.  These decks were done last summer for the opening of the shop in the Hamptons, and were influenced heavily by todd solondz's movie poster for "Happiness" by Daniel Clowes. Try to stop by if you're in the hood!

Can't seem to get away from those lame TV creds.