Experimenting with Gifs Gone Rogue

Nominated Best Animated Shorts - My favorite part of the Academy Awards

Although I was rooting for some supporting actors in the Academy Awards tonight (yes Bale!!) as an artist, I am always smitten with the oscar nominated ANIMATED SHORTS section and so the Winner is...
The Lost Thing... Shaun Tan (one of my Absolute favorite illustrators and writers) & Andrew Ruhemann.
One day I will see my own animation dreams through but for now, I am fortunate enough to relish and be inspired by others who have awakened art through this genre.

Thanks to Youtube I have taken all the nominees and collected their trailers here for you all in one place! ENJOY!!

A Special Stop Motion...

A year and a half ago my student Colin Alexander (now an alumni) developed this stop-motion for my hub and my Advanced Portfolio animation assignment entitled, The Zoo. Colin and I have often maintained a similar art aesthetic in our conceptual attraction to animal/human relations. And after so many other wonderful animations this particular one still holds a very very very special place in my heart. Colin has also just started his own portfolio site as he attends (the school that I attended for grad school) The Maryland Institute College of Art for his undergrad degree. After spending a treat overnight visit with Colin this Thanksgiving break I've decided to share all these wonderful and inspiring treats with you!

On Resurrecting a 24yr. old Animation Project

Unearthed envelope of drawings by Gregg Emerydetail of stack of illos by GE

So while my hub (fellow artist and teacher Gregg Emery) and I have been on Spring Break he unearthed a couple of things from the deepest bowels of the garage (imagine a garage that two artist employ). He had been stretching some new canvases when he stumbled across a large brown envelope that housed a project he did back when he was in the 9th grade.

Mind you we currently teach high-school and we have just assigned a sixty-second digi artistic-animation project to our advanced portfolio development class made up of 10, 11 and 12th graders.

details of 24 yr. old Animation by Gregg Emery

In the past I have made some short test runs of my own animations inspired by artist William Kentridge, who primarily illustrates a single drawing that he animates by erasing and redrawing on the same page. You can see samples of his work on Youtube because much of how Kentridge's work is displayed, is in moving projection form. However, even with our love of Kentridge and my work on animation I had never known that in my husband's past lurked this behemoth of an animation memory.

Today, using programs like IMovie on the Mac or MovieMaker on a PC (and countless other free movie programs) it has become very simple to drop hundreds of photos into a track and speed them up. Now, things like transitions and animated titles often come in prepackaged cookie-cutter forms.

Yet back in the North Country 24 yrs. ago there were no digital cameras, no accessible movie making programs and definitely no prepackaged ways of making animated titles.

hand drawn animated title by Gregg Emery

So here lies my husbands ninth grade self-assigned animation project in which he hand illustrated every single sec of movement and photographed each new page. His art teacher at the time assisted with driving the roll of painstakingly shot 8mm film to get developed. Needless to say the film never returned developed.

There had been something mysteriously wrong with either the development or the film itself.

Can you imagine the heartbreak that caused a young man who had put in that many hours of self-assigned work?? In the end this entire project never saw the light of day. It was designated into an envelope that was to be moved around and spontaneously unearthed 24 yrs. later. opening scenes by Gregg Emery

So for my last days of Spring Break, my project is to do some artistic CPR and resurrect this amazing piece of art work from the land of the forgotten.

my sequencing notes

We have already reordered all the sequencing. Since it is so old, it was often difficult for my husband to remember what many of his intentions in specific areas were.

I have also written out his overall story arc vision and we discussed where I might breathe some 'Marisol' life into aspects of the story to boost his overall narrative.

Thankfully, my husband loved all my proposed additions (not changes) and I'm starting today!