The Film Strip

One of the great things about Intro to Animation Spring 2011 was how my animator mentor, Scott Hall, always encouraged us to expand our knowledge on the art form. It was during class that he suggested to me that I work on a piece that used some straight ahead animation as it was the only one of the 12 principles of animation I had not yet used in any of my works. Had he not brought up that matter than I would never have made a straight ahead animated film in the first place. This served as the genesis of my film, "Deus Ex Machina", which was created entirely out of straight ahead animation. The first part of the film I worked on was the shot involving the plane flying through the clouds, mountains, and valleys. That was the first scene that came to my mind because I love cartoons that show objects and environments moving continuously in perspective. At this point in production I did not know how to present the film. For a little while I tinkered around with the idea of photographing the movie as a film strip...where all the drawings would be presented on two rows from left to right in chronological order. The camera would be placed directly above the light table and would take a shot each time the drawings moved in sequence. The method of filming was similar to that of stop motion, only instead of moving characters I was moving drawings around. The end result would turn out quite different from the way it started. The final film showed all the drawings moving on an drawing easel. When I think about it now after all these years I should do an alternative version where all the drawings are shown on the light table as a film strip. That would be awesome to do one of these days.