Post 3

Animation has always been near and dear to my heart. Probably because the conventions of animation and the conventions of video games are so closely linked. Regardless, growing up in America, I think it's pretty hard to be a kid without watching cartoons.

I never really got into the experimental scene, though. I never understood it. Sure the designs look cool, but what's the purpose. I think I get it now, though. It's not really about the why, it's just about the result. It's dada.

I'm trying to incorporate this in my Assignment 1 film, actually. In my animation, I have various planes of color fighting one another for the right to exist. At one point an absence of color becomes infected with green. As the infection spreads, the frame becomes filled with larger and larger globs of green ink. I started out by brushing the clearleader with oil. Using the brush with oil still in it, I dipped the tip in the green ink and began lightly shaking it to get the ink to spread out in a tiny, gross pattern. As I move down the strip, I tried joining multiple globs of ink to form larger pools, until I reached the part of the strip without oil, where I could have the ink consume the frame.

In the end, it was experimental. I didn't know how it would turn out, and everything was pretty well left to the laws of chance. Dada. Then again, it was all narratively driven, so is it really experimental? At that point, doesn't it become orthadox?