Experiments in animation Animate Projects Animate Projects presents a selection of short experimental animations and interviews with artists. Animate Projects champions experimental animation. For more information about the films and filmmakers visit animateprojects.org. Animate Projects presents experimental animation. Animate Projects is the UK's only arts charity dedicated to championing experimental animation. For more information about the films and filmmakers visit animateprojects.org. http://www.animateprojects.org en-us © 2011 Animate Projects Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:30:00 GMT Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT Animate Projects info@animateprojects.org Animate Projects No The story of Bradley Manning, not as a Wikileaks 'hacktivist', but as a young American soldier. Using Adrian Lamo's chat logs of instant messenger conversations he had with Bradley, the film explores issues of personal and political secrets, digital identity and alienation. Commissioned by Animate Projects, supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/BradleyManningHadSecrets.m4v Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT 05:30 Adam Butcher, Bradley Manning, Digitalis, Digitalis Commissions, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, wikileaks, identity, Adrian Lamo, chat logs, secrets, digital identity Animate Projects No Five Year Plan is an abstract comedy for devices such as iPhones or iPads made using emoji. It is an appreciation of the arbitrary nature of symbols found in emoji mobile applications, where you can find such things as an egg, a poo, a syringe, a sun, a puppy, an old man, a palm tree or a saxophone in one category to punctuate text message conversations. The script is based on a selection of symbols; it is an attempt to connect them, and to celebrate the unpredictable, hilarious, moving and complicated nature of communication and understanding. Commissioned by Animate Projects, supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/FiveYearPlan.m4v Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT 02:28 Matilda Tristram, Five Year Plan, Digitalis, Digitalis Commissions, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, emoji, symbols, communication Animate Projects No Fountain (zoom) is a slow zooming shot of a particularly exuberant fountain. A slow zooming shot of a particularly exuberant fountain was filmed beginning from the far distance and stopping when it reached full frame, before immediately zooming back out again. The resulting footage was divided into just over 3,700 still frames and each of these images digitally manipulated so that the size of the fountain within the frame of the screen remains constant for the duration of the film. Commissioned by Animate Projects, supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/FountainZoom.m4v Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT 05:00 Lizzie Hughes, Fountain, Digitalis, Digitalis Commissions, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, zoom Animate Projects No In Our relationships will become radiant three narratives unfold together. Inside a vast nature reserve sits a solitary building, a café, where an important meeting is being held by executives. Outside in the park, the collective singular lounge about wearing fancy garments. Images are exchanged, participation simulated: the interminable present. Meanwhile, the dormant wildlife fades away. Commissioned by Animate Projects, supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/OurRelationships.m4v Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT 08:53 James Lowne, Our relationships, Digitalis, Digitalis Commissions, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, drawing, nature, wildlife Animate Projects No Adam Butcher speaks about his Digitalis Commission, Bradley Manning Had Secrets. Adam Butcher has been writing and directing since 2006. His work combines live action, puppetry, hand-drawn and computer animation. Adam has directed music videos and charity promos, and designs and programs freeware computer games. His film Bradley Manning Had Secrets is the story of Bradley Manning, not as a Wikileaks 'hacktivist', but as a young American soldier simultaneously going through a crisis-of-conscious and a crisis-of-gender-identity. The Digitalis Commissions are supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/AdamButchernterview.m4v Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT 10:39 Adam Butcher, Bradley Manning, Digitalis, Digitalis Commissions, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, wikileaks, gender identity interview Animate Projects No Lizzie Hughes speaks about her Digitalis Commission, Fountain (zoom). Lizzie Hughes is an artist whose work includes installation, sound, text and video works. Aside from her studio practice, she has undertaken residencies and commissions which have taken her work into a broad public realm. Her film Fountain (zoom) is a slow zooming shot of a particularly exuberant fountain. The footage was divided into 3,700 still frames and digitally manipulated so that the size of the fountain remains constant for the duration of the film. The Digitalis Commissions are supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/LizzieHughesInterview.m4v Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT 09:29 Lizzie Hughes, Fountain, Digitalis, Digitalis Commissions, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, zoom, interview Animate Projects No James Lowne speaks about his Digitalis Commission, Our relationships will become radiant. James Lowne is an artist who has worked commercially in post-production, and has exhibited drawings, animation and film in London. In Our relationships will become radiant three narratives unfold together. Inside a vast nature reserve sits a solitary building where an important meeting is being held by executives. Outside in the park, the collective singular lounge about wearing fancy garments. Meanwhile, the dormant wildlife fades away. The Digitalis Commissions are supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/JamesLowneInterview.m4v Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT 08:15 James Lowne, Our relationships, Digitalis, Digitalis Commissions, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, drawing, wildlife, interview Animate Projects No Matilda Tristram speaks about her Digitalis Commission, Five Year Plan. Matilda Tristram graduated with an MA Animation from the Royal College of Art in 2008. She has worked as an animation director on music videos and online virals and as a scriptwriter and developer for Ragdoll Productions. Her film Five Year Plan is an abstract comedy for devices such as iPhones or iPads, using emoji (Japanese text message character pictures) as material with which to draw. The Digitalis Commissions are supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/MatildaTristramInterview.m4v Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT 10:17 Five Year Plan, Matilda Tristram, Digitalis, Digitalis Commissions, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, emoji, interview Animate Projects No A frenetically spinning/stuttering/stopping depiction of the Super-Waltzer ride on Brighton Pier. Super-Whip is colourful and bright: a frenetically spinning/stuttering/stopping depiction of the Super-Waltzer ride on Brighton Pier. Presented in a split-screen frenzy, Super-Whip is frantic and relentlessly joyful because of its hallucinatory nature. The driving soundtrack of original music propels the visuals ever faster. Shot on 16mm film using stop-frame animation techniques, the recorded material was then hand-processed, then professionally digitised. As the surface of the emulsion on the negative was intentionally physically punctured, torn and damaged through this most basic of developing processes, the resulting film is flecked with scratches and streaked with black scars. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/SuperWhip.m4v Mon, 6 Dec 2010 18:00:00 GMT 3:26 Galaxy, Jordan Baseman, Super-Whip, Rough Machine, Engine, APEngine, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, 16mm, stop-frame, animation Animate Projects No A somber, back and white portrait of the stark architecture of Brighton's Horror Hotel and Galaxy ride. Galaxy is a somber, back and white film that portrays the stark architecture of Brighton's Horror Hotel and the end of the pier Galaxy ride. Washed out, barely-there images flicker in silhouette. In a landscape that is normally teeming with people - this ride, this place, is empty. Summer is over. Shot on 16mm film using stop-frame animation techniques. The recorded material was then hand-processed, then professionally digitised. As the surface of the emulsion on the negative was intentionally physically punctured, torn and damaged through this most basic of developing processes, the resulting film is flecked with scratches and streaked with black scars. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/Galaxy.m4v Mon, 6 Dec 2010 18:00:00 GMT 1:55 Galaxy, Jordan Baseman, Rough Machine, Engine, APEngine, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, 16mm, stop-frame, animation, black and white Animate Projects No Exploring technology and the desire for digital perfection. Bill Balaskas: "The gadgets that surround us often combine the promise for 'digital perfection' with the assertion that the 'special' moments of our lives only deserve an equally 'special' and 'perfect' means of documentation. For this project, I set up and documented such a stereotypical, 'perfect' moment, using the gadget that has acquired an almost symbolic status in today's digital culture: Apple's iPhone. After applying filters that 'fix' digital noise on both image and sound, I juxtaposed sequentially a frame of original footage with a frame of manipulated footage. The value of the filters applied on each manipulated frame is slightly bigger than the one applied on the previous frame. As a result, the effort to 'improve digital perfection' ends up becoming an agent of disruption, confusion and decay." http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/MeltingPoint.m4v Mon, 6 Dec 2010 18:00:00 GMT 2:26 Melting Point, Bill Balaskas, iPhone, noise, Rough Machine, Engine, APEngine, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, manipulated footage, frame Animate Projects Yes A romp through the uses and abuses of the human tongue. Chris Newby: "Taste in the human tongue has five receptors: Salty, Bitter, Sour, Sweet and Umami. Umami is to be found in bacon. I imagined a great deal of this film while sitting on the end of Southend Pier which in itself is a kind of tongue or spit. I always set out to make jolly films but somehow they always go sinister on me. This one is no exception." http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/AnOddLittleOpus.m4v Mon, 6 Dec 2010 18:00:00 GMT 3:13 An Odd Little Opus, Chris Newby, Rough Machine, Engine, APEngine, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, tongue, umami Animate Projects No Beauty and brutality within an industrial dystopia. Katerina Athanasopoulou: "The film started by walking through the remains of old, disused gasworks, shooting with a handheld digital camera. I was there looking for inspiration, without a storyboard or shot list, but observing and imagining how these particular machines could come to life. The live action was then masked and cut up digitally, removing the background elements mostly frame by frame. I used still images from the same machines to create extra 2D elements such as pipes and scaffolding. Further videos of working machines were cut out to animate the scaffolding. The entire process was like a collage of still and moving elements, created in After Effects and Photoshop, using the live action that I originally shot. After calculating the 3D space, I created tentacles that flowed freely, attracting cell-like amoebas. The latter were composited on top and through the live action - animation mix. " http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/EngineAngelic.m4v Mon, 6 Dec 2010 18:00:00 GMT 2:45 Engine Angelic, Katerina Athanasopoulou, Rough Machine, Engine, APEngine, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, After Effects, animate Animate Projects No Inspired by the tape recordings of Raymond Cass, a foremost researchers into Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Inspired by the tape recordings of Raymond Cass, a hearing-aid specialist from Hull and one of the UK's foremost researchers into 'Electronic Voice Phenomenon' (EVP). EVP recordings present messages 'of unknown origin' heard in radio frequencies and background noise, and possess a distorted, unearthly quality. Many researchers into EVP believe they are the voices of the dead. Through a series of fragmentary scenes rendered in pencil and watercolour animation we enter into an unsettling territory somewhere between the real and the abstract. We hear the strange sounds of EVP, and Cass himself talking about his work. But the film is not about Cass, instead it takes the details of his life and work, and the recordings themselves, as a route to explore the hidden realms of the unconscious mind. The film mirrors the uncanny, inexplicable nature of EVP, the mystery and poetry of the recordings, and challenges rational explanations. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/OfUnknownOrigin.m4v Mon, 6 Dec 2010 18:00:00 GMT 3:00 Of Unknown Origin, Edwin Rostron, Raymond Cass, Rough Machine, Engine, APEngine, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects, animation, electronic voice phenomenon, EVP, watercolour, hand drawn Animate Projects No Melanie Jackson's International Fauna is a blast, an anti-anthem, a parade of the animal symbols designated by nation states. International Fauna is a blast, an anti-anthem, a parade of the animal symbols designated by nation states quick change through a background of digital colour fields. The representations are matched back with their animal call, for the duration of the image - a concrete composition of the absurd. International Fauna is commissioned by Relational and produced with Animate Projects and Picture This as part of the Anti-Bodies programme Anti-Bodies is co-ordinated by Relational, with support from Arts Council England, and granted the London 2012 Inspire mark as part of the Cultural Olympiad. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/internationalfauna.m4v Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:00:00 GMT 2:55 International Fauna, Melanie Jackson, animal, symbols, nation, digital, colour, film, Animate Projects Animate Projects No Andrew Kötting's 'coastcard' from Hastings, East Sussex, attempts to invoke a sense of the past via the here-and-now. Drawing on Kötting's own extensive Super 8 archive and growing body of Mini DV footage, and featuring a voiceover from Iain Sinclair, the film attempts to portray a fragmented and nostalgic view of a part of the world that has proved vital to the very fabric of Kötting's existence. One of three short film 'coastcards', commissioned by Animate Projects as part of the Sea Change initiative. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/EdgelandMutter.m4v Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:40:00 GMT 4:06 Andrew Kötting, Hastings, Edgeland Mutter, Coastcards, Iain Sinclair, Super 8, archive, film, Animate Projects Animate Projects No Love Brid is Susan Collins' loving tribute to the seaside, and colourful rollercoaster ride through the coastal town of Bridlington, North Yorkshire. An animated postcard, Love Brid has been made with a view to an online/iPhone context and is intended to be browsed interactively as a series of stills, or digital flipbook, as well as be seen as a linear animated film. One of three short film 'coastcards', commissioned by Animate Projects as part of the Sea Change initiative. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/LoveBrid.m4v Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:40:00 GMT 3:34 Susan Collins, Love Brid, Bridlington, Coastcards, flipbook, film, animation, Animate Projects Animate Projects No A twenty first century stroll along the Back Beach in Teignmouth, Devon, evoking the optical entertainments of the Victorian pier. The Jones family holidayed in Teignmouth from 1934 to 1939, their summer activities captured forever on black and white film. A lifetime later the town is still here: ships in the docks, bathers on the beach, people promenade. Teign Spirit celebrates this continuity, mixing these home movies with new waves. One of three short film 'coastcards', commissioned by Animate Projects as part of the Sea Change initiative. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/TeignSpirit.m4v Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:40:00 GMT 2:41 Kayla Parker, Stuart Moore, Teignmouth, Teign Spirit, Coastcards, film, animation, black and white, Animate Projects Animate Projects No The effects of global warming has led man to seek refuge under water. A hand drawn animation of an apocalyptic scenario: the earth is covered in mould and fungi due to global warming. Extreme weather has forced man to take refuge under the sea surface. Co-commissioned with RSA Arts & Ecology. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/atlantis.m4v Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:30:00 GMT 1:54 Atlantis, global warming, Christine Ödlund, under water, sea, hand drawn, animation, ecology, Animate Projects Animate Projects No A structuralist take on a public information film. A public information film becomes affected by the flooding it warns of. Co-commissioned with RSA Arts & Ecology. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/damage_limitation.m4v Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:30:00 GMT 1:44 public information, Damage Limitation, Phil Coy, flooding, structuralist, animation, Animate Projects Animate Projects No Pollution, endangered species, global warming and gluttony. A sushi dinner with friends during which they talk of other climates, other dishes. Co-commissioned with RSA Arts & Ecology. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/sucking_on_a_tailpipe.m4v Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:30:00 GMT 1:08 I'm Sucking on a Tailpipe in Seoul, Pollution, endangered species, global warming, gluttony, Young-Hae Chang, animation, Animate Projects Animate Projects No The effects of winter tourism on the environment. A short meditation on the manipulation of winter landscapes for tourism that points to the landscapes fragility and recalls the need for a holistic perspective. Co-commissioned with RSA Arts & Ecology. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/make_it_snow.m4v Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:30:00 GMT 1:44 Make it snow, winter, tourism, Manu Luksch, environment, animation, ecology, Animate Projects Animate Projects No Three short animations where the landscape is brought to life. The three short animations, Severed, a landscape in peril, coughing up its own blood, The Deracinater, a tree trying to communicate and uproot itself and The Isle, a whole landscape under threat, heighten the human impact and presence on our landscape, both social and ecological. Co-commissioned with RSA Arts & Ecology. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/severed.m4v Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:30:00 GMT 1:34 Severed, The Deracinater, The Isle, Simon Woolham, ecological, landscape, animation, Animate Projects Animate Projects No Extinction implied in a single shot. A nocturnal, single shot of an illuminated, urban, store-front sign that reads: Chez Dodo. We see silhouettes of people as they pass in front of us. We hear an evocative, somber piano lament. Co-commissioned with RSA Arts & Ecology. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/d_is_for_dodo.m4v Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:30:00 GMT 1:12 dodo, Jordan Baseman, d is for dodo, animation, single shot, extinction, ecology, Animate Projects Animate Projects No The lost beauty of nature is replaced artificially. The film takes on the industrial wasteland, replacing the lost nature with artificial beautification. Co-commissioned with RSA Arts & Ecology. http://69.89.31.56/~animatep/itunes/its_like_this.m4v Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:30:00 GMT 2:21 Elodie Pong, industrial wasteland, nature, film, ecology, animation, Animate Projects