ANIMATION / DRAWING / FILM / MUSIC THINGS

In my free time outside of 3D, I like to make different things. Animation, video, drawing, and especially music. As well as playing music myself, I love getting involved in other people’s music projects in different ways. Here are some projects over the years ranging from school assignments to indie music videos and hand drawn animation.

TRANSFORMATION ANIMATION

OCAD 2009

This one’s an oldie. My first go at doing hand drawn animation, which I made for OCAD’s '“Frame X Frame”. It was an interesting class. There was no proper animation class at OCAD (at least at the time). I remember it being mostly about carving animation into old film but there was the freedom to do the process any way we chose. I went the traditional route but with only DIY equipment and a minimal knowledge of the proper animation process. It felt very much like the National Film Board animations we were shown as kids. It was very exciting. The project was done on 5.5” X 4.25” paper (printer paper cut into quarters) using alcohol markers and a tracing table I built from a picture frame, piano hinge and broken lamp. I really found my voice with this project and it inspired many projects I would do afterwards. There was a theme about big asperations becoming mundane…but really, anybody who knows me knows that this is an orange DeLorean that eventually transforms into Starscream.

RELICS

OCAD 2011

My thesis project for OCADU’s Integrated Media Program. In the summer of 2010 I took a temp job at an auto parts warehouse where I would check skids of taillights for defects. There was a lot of down time between skids coming in and even more cardboard waste. So during this time I would grab a piece of cardboard and sketch storyboards of animals made out of car parts. The next year at school I struggled to find a thesis topic. I explored something much more complicated and boring for a whole semester before I decided to chuck it in favor for my cardboard drawings. It was perfect, an ode to cardboard that had all the things I liked in it; robots, dogs, desert, and totally rough around the edges. It sounded exactly like me. As I fleshed out the project it became a lot more about the theme of extinction and how new life will always keep on going with or without you (mostly because I had to write a large thesis paper to justify doing it). The next semester I spent majority of my time making the 575 hand drawn (non-repeating) frames. I scanned and printed torn cardboard onto paper so I could use my DIY tracing table to draw on it (yes, I realize compositing the drawings on the cardboard in After Effects would have made the project thousands of times easier, but it’s all about exploring). For the music I made a library of cool slide guitar sounds and handed them off to my friends, Dave and Drew, to take a crack at an edit while I continued drawing. We passed that soundtrack back and forth and finally got the project finished. Later that year I submitted the animation to the Toronto Urban film Festival and won Best Environmental Film. I think its really cool that it spoke to the environmental theme; I like when a project becomes more than what you have originally set out to do.

Relics II

Sheridan Final 2012

My OCAD thesis helped a huge amount in getting into Sheridan’s Computer Animation program. This cowboy continuation was the theme people seemed to like most of the ideas I pitched and also seemed like the most achievable in the timeframe. It was really fun, and It’s definitely rough (still kicking myself that I did everything low poly) …but I guess if you don’t cringe at your early work it’s probably not a good sign for showing improvement.

JET

2014

When we were kids, my brother made a joke about a Lego man hanging from a jet engine to get around. I still find it hilarious. Over the years I kept coming back to that idea for film projects. I also always really liked the paper doll pop up book look that can be done with After Effects. Here is the animation I put together based on that jet joke.

MUSIC VIDEOS AND SHORTS

Touche

OCAD 2010

16mm Black and White Film

New indie bands working with film students can be really great. Both parties are usually mutually benefited. Students get people willing to act and a soundtrack for a project they can submit for grades. Bands get an inexpensive/free experimental video. I did a bunch of things for my friend’s band back when I was a film student. Here is one video we made using a 16mm Bolex.

Smoke Filled Baretta

2012/2015

This video was a neat project to work on. I wanted to see if I could film the band under the Burlington Skyway Bridge, so we did that. Not long after we finished filming, the band broke up and the project was shelved. I still wanted to finish it, so eventually I did. Unfortunately the problems with the footage couldn’t be reshot so I had to work with what I had. One solution was to add animation to places where there were noticeable mistakes. I always wanted to try a Roger Rabbit type of animation, so that’s what it became. It took forever, but I learned a lot from it about time management. As for theme, it’s supposed to be a take on the siren story, not sure how clear that comes across, but that’s where I was going when I added the animation.

ATOMIC BARETTA

OCAD 2010

Short animation experiment based on a gig poster the band had and old 50s B movies. Just something I wanted to try to ease into animating people. The “Myspace” web address probably dates this thing the most.

REALLY INTO YOU

2016

This one was a really great time. I loved the idea of the shadow man Tearjerker had pitched and when I heard the theme of the tune the ideas just kept flowing. This one also took a very long time but everything I had learned from Sheridan and previous trials and errors made it much smoother. Shot on DSLR’s, animated by hand, scanned, and composited in After Effects.