Research - Contemporary Influences

Fluorescent Hill
http://www.fluorescenthill.com/video/onyourway.html
Mark Lomond and Johanne Ste-Marie, also known as Fluorescent Hill, direct animations for music videos, festivals and adverts. Their animations tend to involve at least some traditional animation, often including photographs or digital work. For instance, one of their music videos, for the track "On Your Way", uses traditionally animated characters and what I sincerely hope are photographs for the background, because if they are animated or painted, they look far too realistic. I quite liked the aesthetic, because I feel the colours were nice, with the greens and the brightly coloured characters.

Weirdly, the characters somewhat remind me of the Gruffalo. I, personally, feel like I'd like to have textured trees, but I'd like my trees to look more fanciful, because I'd like to try and mimic what I imagined when I was a child, when I was told stories. When I was told about twisted trees, for instance, I would always imagine twisted up paper. Perhaps I will make a set, but not with real trees the way this was (hopefully) made.

Saimon Chow
http://www.saimanchow.com/
I have to say, I'm not a fan of this guy's work. I am not a fan of art that supposedly has a deep meaning, which is completely not apparent in the art itself. Sometimes I can deal with it if the art itself is visually pleasing to me, but I feel this isn't due to the confusing shapes and colours.

I think the one piece of work I like from this is the very non-indicative Goopocalypse adverts. I really enjoyed those, and how they worked with the fact their characters were Creme Eggs. For instance, one of the Screme Eggs, acting like zombies, is split in half, and 'crawling'. Since it's a Creme Egg, it doesn't leave a trail of blood, but filling. I find it interesting that they took a situation that, were the characters human beings, would be horrific and gory, and turned it funny.

I also think it was quite interesting that the creators have made characters that I can feel empathy for... Out of eggs. This is especially evident in the "Last Stand" advert, where three eggs escape the Screme Egg zombie apocalypse. I was honestly quietly cheering for these characters during the video. I think a big part of how these Eggs have made such good characters is that they have very clear personalities. One starts the animation hiding, clearly a civillian, another egg has a Rambo-style bandana, and is clearly the action hero leader.

Also, in the "Last Stand" advert, the Creme Egg survivors have a suped up car with whisks on the wheels and a spatula on the front. This is a hilarious addition, because the additions are cooking utensils clearly associated with eggs, and it's an interesting parallel to real life when the situation is an apocalypse of zombie chocolate eggs. Also, Creme Egg survivors in a Mad Max style weaponized car. It simply must be seen to be believed.

Bruno Mayor
http://www.brunomayor.com/
I'm somewhat apathetic of this man's work. A lot of it is designed to look a little bit creepy, which is actually a thing I often appreciate. I believe he uses some rotoscoping on some of his animations, putting different images on top of some edited film of a live person.

However, my personal favourite of his animations is "Guerre Naive". This film has 3D animation, designed to look like stopmotion, and with some 2D effects put on top. I like this, because it creates an interesting contrast, with the brighter 2D effects, yet they also keep a strange kind of togetherness, with the cartoonish designs of the characters. I doubt I will take much from this man's work, due to my wish to have a very different aesthetic for my own animation.

Joel Trussell
http://www.joeltrussell.com/
I quite like this guy's work! I find it interesting how he creates engaging characters out of inanimate objects, with animation digitally rotoscoped over the top. Of course, he also does animations another way, which is 2D animation. However, his puppetry is more recognisable. I think my personal favourite of his works is "Carrot and Stick", about, well, a carrot and a stick. What I like about it is the aforementioned engaging characters out of inanimate objects, but also how there's a combination of how he uses the puppets. Usually, the characters are obviously props held in someone's hands, with facial expressions and such rotoscoped on top.

But, in long shots, the faces vanish, and the props are simply used in conjunction with a live dog. The reason for this is explained in the animation.