cutouts – experimenta.l.

Blog, Collaborators, cutouts, Experimental Animation

Made of Many Parts

By Grace Burns

Cutouts, cutouts, cutouts. I spent most of the process of working on Made of Many Parts with a pair of scissors in my hand, cutting out frames of drawings that I had scribbled out over a lightbox with the paper provided in the lab. In order to keep things visually interesting in a film of mostly still shots, I drew each still drawing three times and had them swap every two frames in order to keep a sketchy, notebook drawing-type look to the art style.

In order to keep everything stable in each shot, I utilized a makeshift layering system on the animation table. I had two panes of glass to work with, and I separated them with manga volumes from my bookshelf at home. In a way, my inspirations were literally physically supporting me through this endeavor, and I find that heartwarming.

Of course, a lot was going on behind the scenes as well. In my favorite shot from the film, the TV shot, there was a very roundabout process involved. To start, I had to render out each individual clip I was going to use in Adobe Premiere, isolating each individual frame as a PNG file. From there, I combined every frame of each clip together into PDF files and printed out every single one onto pieces of paper. It came out to hundreds of sheets. It was quite a large stack of paper, and part of me felt silly going through this much effort for something people may or may not even notice. The most important part to me was making sure the entire animation process was made with zero digital edits involved (Aside from compiling everything together in an editing software, of course), and to achieve this, I shot every single frame of each TV/movie clip that I had printed out and edited them into a cute little compilation to highlight the media that inspires me. After all, that’s what the film is about!

Another standout point of the short that I loved working with was the backgrounds. For the sake of saving time, I wanted the film to take place in a sort of blank, empty, void-type environment, but I also wanted it to be visually interesting. To do this, I edited together six different images of paint splatters in Photoshop and put a lot of different adjustment layers and filters over them in order to make sure they were all highly saturated and brightly colored. I was worried it might be a bit overstimulating for viewers (I’m sure it is for a lot of people), but it ended up working in my favor due to the messy, splattered backgrounds contrasting very well with the clean, white paper I used for the actual cutout drawings.

All in all, I really enjoyed working traditionally with this kind of animation style. It was the type of hands-on approach I desperately needed to preserve my interest in the medium, and I would highly recommend any animator, 2D or 3D, give it a shot just to really dig into the bare elements of animation.

Grace’s film was completely created in the experimenta.l. lab, in Fall 2022. It just got accepted into the Les Femmes Underground Film Festival in Los Angeles.

abstract animation, Collaborative Projects, cutouts, Experimental Animation, sound experiments

Wintry Mix

In December 2022, the jazz guitarist and Associate Professor of Jazz Studies at UNT, Davy Mooney, reached out to our lab to collaborate on a unique experimental animation of the song Wintry Mix from his latest album, Way Back. Here we share the behind-the-scenes of the creation of this project that just got completed in time for the launch of Mooney’s new album.

Christine Veras and Philip Martin collaborated to create unique hands-on frame-by-frame animations for Wintry Mix in the experimental animation lab. The process started during winter when they captured videos and images of the Texas landscape, as that was one of the inspirations for the song:

They animated using a variety of techniques and tricks: In a multiplane structure, we shot through ice, we used calculator rolls to paint sequences, strips of paper cutouts to simulate the guitar strings, we used torch lights to create light effects captured frame-by-frame, and we even animated time-lapse sequences of plants seem through a kaleidoscope to mimic the saxophone vibrations. All to create textures and movements to help the animation reinforce and play with the melody.

All the animations were captured using Dragonframe, the industry-standard stop-motion animation software. Once exported, the material was edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, mixing and remixing the animations, layering, and overlapping them to match the mood and rhythm of the music. The entire process was a playful experimentation.

The complete video for Wintry Mix was launched in June 12, 2023. See the complete animation below:

Wintry Mix Animation

Watch here the audience reaction to the film compiled by the Experimental, Dance & Music Festival 2023:

Here is an interview the festival did with Director Christine Veras: https://matthewtoffolo.com/2023/09/01/filmmaker-christine-veras-wintry-mix/

abstract animation, Collaborative Projects, Collaborators, cutouts, Event, sound experiments

American Idiot Collab

Students in the Experimental Animation Course created in our lab original animations that will feature on the stage during the American Idiot play produced at the University Theater at UTDallas. The play première is on Thursday, October 27, 2022. Tickets can be purchased here.

Play synopsis:

“Slinging razor guitars, thundering drums, and an anti-hero named Johnny. Not the prelude of typical entries in the canon of musical theatre. But these elements herald a groundbreaking American musical all the same: with the burning passion of characters who yearn for something more, songs bursting with emotion, and a story that dares you to feel and celebrate and hope.

The music of Green Day and the lyrics of lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong captured the zeitgeist of a generation with its Grammy® Award-winning multi-platinum album. American Idiot puts those raw emotions front and center in a highly theatrical and thoroughly satisfying rock opera that burns up the stage.

Monster hits like Boulevard of Broken Dreams, 21 Guns, Wake Me Up When September Ends, Holiday, and the title track soar like they were written for the stage under the direction of Tony Award® winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening), choreography by Olivier Award winner Steven Hoggett (Black Watch) and music supervision, orchestrations and arrangements by Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Kitt (Next to Normal).”

In the project, the animation students met with the play director Christopher Treviño and the projections designer, Safwan Chowdhury. Segments of three songs were chosen, and the students started to animate them. See below the credits of the animations for each song:

See below a few behind-the-scenes images of the students while animating:

Once the play is over, we will make all the animations available for viewing on the lab’s YouTube channel. See below for a sneak peek of the work and get your tickets to see the animations on stage with the amazing performers.

Watch here the completed animation pieces:

cutouts, Experimental Animation, Featured

A Decree from the Stars

A project reflection by Marcelo Rocha
Capstone Project Spring 22

Working on A Decree From the Stars has been a very fun yet stressful process that I would love to go through all over again. My main goal with this short was to do some type of animation using experimental methods in some fashion. Whether animating with non-traditional materials or using unconventional digital methods, I wanted to work on something experimental. I mainly did this because I wanted to challenge myself and work on a project that would have a unique style and look to it, but also because working with experimental methods is something that I have always had an interest in.

Animating using paper cutouts was super fun and almost felt relaxing. Drawing and cutting those drawings took up a lot of my time on this project, but I think it was worth it overall, and the style was just about what I was aiming for with the short. The part that I felt needed more refining was the digital animation and effects that came up for the monster’s portions. I’m still satisfied with how it came out, but I feel like I could’ve made the monster look more striking or ominous.

My original intention was to find a way to incorporate real paint into the animation. If I were ever to go back, I would try and take the time to incorporate that paint in with the digital animation. The tests where I used paint gave the animation physicality and had a real-world presence that I loved. When thinking of the story and message for this short, I wanted to focus on an environmental message because it was starting to frustrate me at the time, as well as something that I could easily fit with a giant monster story that I always wanted to write. Looking back, I would change the story to make this message clearer and possibly even bring up more pieces of climate change and environmentalism that I didn’t bring up.

^{Animation excerpt}

When I look at the final product, I feel like I treat myself too harshly, only paying attention to all of the flaws or small things that make it hard for me to view my work all the way through. However, looking at all of the work that I have done for this short, writing and scripting, animating, editing, and putting it all together, I think I accomplished what I originally set out for and enjoyed the time I spent working on this short even if it was very stressful at certain times. Being proud of my work is normally hard for me to do, but when I look at the work I’ve done for A Decree From the Stars is something that I am definitely proud of.

Discover here the behind the scenes process for the creation of this project:
https://deecrefromstars.weebly.com/the-proccess.html