Why animation?

I saw this great TED talk recently and it inspired me to ask myself "why?"



Here is why I love working with animation and the moving image:

- Any idea is possible!
- It can offer a simple, fun and effective way of expressing a message.
- In the audio visual area, I get a deep satisfaction of matching visuals to music/sounds.
- Live action can be integrated with animation. It is great to make something that has been previously imagined be perceived as real. If you're not going for photo realism, it is still great to combine the two and create a cool style or express an interesting idea.
- The joy of breathing life into a character or object. Creating a believable world and defying the laws of the real world.
- Animation tends to be a team sport and I enjoy working with others.
- I love working with visual narrative - conventional or abstract.
- It's highly stimulating and utilises both my technical and creative skills.
- It has a range of different applications - television, films, theatre, AV performance, music festival screens, clubs, the internet etc. It is widely accessible.
- It carries the ability to entertain, inform, influence and amaze people, ways in which that are unique to the medium.

"The Otherworld" - compositing work experience

I am currently busy doing some work experience for independent feature film "The Otherworld." It's good to get some experience and fun to be part of the project. My role so far has been to key out a green screen shot and create "magic mist" that surrounds the character. The shot I'm on now involves a bit of rotoscoping and match moving to line up a moving camera shot of a character in front of a matte painting backdrop. It's nice to refresh my skills previously learned as well as develop my knowledge. Unfortuantly, I cannot put up any stills/movies of my work until the film gets released.