Collaborators

Starlight Sculptor

By Martin Cho

“Starlight Sculptor” is a 3 minute and 40 seconds animated teaser about two characters, Lowenna Newton and Unit 541, who set out on a journey to search for the thousand years old mechanical tablet that allows them to recover the Great Mother of Universe and save their home planet Gaya. While on their journey, they must face the menacing war machine to pass on to get the tablet from archive storage.

The concept of the story is inspired by John Ames Mitchell’s future history novel “The Last American” and Physical geography displaying subterranean layers from Levi Walter Yaggy’s geographical maps and charts. It was also inspired by Bionicle’s storyline and the video game “Metro 2033,” It also includes my childhood experience walking in underground cities and department store buildings connected to each subway station.

In this teaser, I used two different techniques for working on 3D animation. Character animations are fully worked inside using Blender. Originally, I wanted every character to be digitally hand-drawn. Unfortunately, this plan has been canceled due to the lack of time to work on 2D animation and submit the project’s recent updates. Instead of 2D animated characters, I made each character into stylized 3d characters, which allows me to render animated sequences faster inside Blender.

Four different environments are rendered fully on Unreal Engine 5. Most of the blocking and modeling is done in Blender, and then it’s later imported to the unreal engine in different scene files for adding textures and various assets. I’ve been experimenting with using the game engine as a background for 2D animated web series in the future. At the end of compositing every piece together, it was amazing to see how the result came out better than I thought it would be.

Watch the Starlight Sculptor teaser here:

For more images and behind-the-scenes information, check here: https://martinizer90.wixsite.com/starlightsculptor

experimenta.l. lab experience

I joined the experimental animation lab at the beginning of the fall semester of 2020. It was time I enrolled in Dr. Christine Veras’ course on animation origin and techniques; the 2D animation course wasn’t available to the students. I enrolled in the experimental lab because this was a space where students could learn traditional animation and experiment with different techniques.

It was a time when most classes were meeting virtually, and experimental lab was recommended during the course lesson. I remember participating in special meetings and collaborating with other students to create the logo animation for the lab. I used to work animation alone during my spare time, but collaborating with multiple students to create logo animations was such an experience to understand each other’s ideas and provide help during the meeting. It was fun to do such activities and animating pieces of work the way I like to make.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do in the lab, but I was glad to meet students with different styles, and it gave me a chance to share my style and interest in the future. I was so grateful to be part of a group of active members in this lab since its beginning. In the lab, I created animated short films such as “A Successful Path” and my capstone project, “Starlight Sculptor.” I hope to see more students sharing their styles and ideas to shine in the lab in the upcoming semesters.

Below are a few images of Martin and his collaborations in the lab over the years:

Collaborative Projects, Collaborators, Experimental Animation, Guest Speaker, Lab activities, Partnership

Sweater Weather

Music and Animation Collab

In the fall 23 semester, Drs. Katrina Rushing and Christine Veras joined forces with Associate Professor of Practice Hal Gupta-Fitzgerald in a collaborative project inviting their students to work together. Students from the upper-level experimental animation and music theory courses collaborated and combined their creativity to create a project that included original animation with an original musical score. The final musical pieces were recorded in the Bass School sound studio under Gupta-Fitzgerald’s guidance and his talented student Maikhanh Ho. The final projects of this collaboration were showcased at the Jonsson Performance Hall in October.

The students were divided into pairs, one from each discipline. At the start of the collaboration, we organized a special talk with Aardman Studios director Lucy Izzard, offering inputs from her work with musicians in creating the stop-motion animation series Very Small Creatures.

After the initial group meeting, the students shared ideas around the theme Sweater Weather, and the animators started to develop storyboards. Unlike most music/animation collaborations, the musicians were involved early in the production, offering insights and feedback throughout the creation process.

The animators provided an animatic to their partners to help them plan the key moments of the composition in connection with the action in the animation. While the experimental animators were animating, the musicians rehearsed and prepared to record the music. Associate Professor Gupta-Fitzgerald states: “During the audio production phase of this project, the focus was on precision and technical finesse. Guiding the musicians through live recording in UTD’s sound studio involved meticulous attention to equipment and acoustics. Maikhanh’s high skill level and attention to detail played a crucial role in achieving the seamless synchronization of the musical scores with each animation. The outcome is a testament to the meticulous technical execution that underpins the creative synergy between audio and visual elements in this collaboration.”

The collaboration was 7 weeks long, and before the public screening, the students presented their final animation to the group for input. Animators and musicians have learned a lot about each other’s creative process and production.

The final projects were shared with the public, family, and friends on a special screening.

Dr. Rushing provided insights on the collaboration: “The Bass School of Arts, Humanities and Technology brings together a wide variety of creative and technical possibilities. As a music instructor, I wanted my advanced music theory students to have the opportunity to compose music for a specific purpose as well as develop collaborative skills. After discussing the mood, theme, and color scheme with the animators, the musicians composed a short piece of music to accompany the experimental animation project. Furthermore, the musicians had the opportunity to produce a live recording of their pieces in UTD’s audio engineering studio. The students gained an appreciation for the challenges of experimental animation and discovered the thrill of recording their music in a professional studio. All of the music students were excited and grateful to have this “real-world” experience! “

For Dr. Veras, “This collaboration not only showcases the immense creative potential of our students and faculty but also unfolds the creative possibilities when interdisciplinary talents converge. It was also rewarding to see our facilities in full use, in service of our creative endeavors. In this exchange, the animation students explored the intricacies of their field, sharing their creative process while gaining insights into the field of music. By engaging in this collaboration, students expanded their horizons and learned to cultivate a deeper understanding of the subtleties and challenges involved in collaborative creative projects. In summary, we all learned a lot and have started planning for future collaborations.”

Watch the animations and interviews with the students as screened at our event:

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.

Collaborative Projects, Collaborators, Experimental Animation

Roundtrip Animation

This project starts from a circle. A circle which turns and thus creates a rotation, a continuous flow of images.

It is also a circle across the Atlantic, an inquiry into the cultural similarities and differences between what used to be called ‘the Old World’ and ‘the New World’. At the same time, it is an exploration of ‘old media’ and ‘new media’, opportunities that arise from the interrelation between both, creating yet another circle.

Students from the School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology in Dallas partnered with students from LUCA Arts School in Brussels in a virtual exchange project to experiment and create animation using a proto-animation device: the phenakistiscope.

This project was developed in collaboration between professors Guido Devadder (LUCA) and Christine Veras (AHT). Here are some behind-the-scenes and production process photos:

The final compilation of all the animations is available below:

Original music and editing by Guido Devadder.

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:

Collaborative Projects, Collaborators, Event, Experimental Animation, Lab activities

A Lasting Image

Our research project is shaping up, and we presented our work in progress during the 52nd Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, organized by the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, at the University of Texas at Dallas, from 5-7 March 2022. Our talk was titled “A Lasting Image (work in progress): The Challenges of Documenting the Holocaust Through Animation.” The animation is produced at the experimenta.l. lab in partnership with the Ackerman Center. The story is based on the testimony of Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, a Holocaust scholar and survivor who founded the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies.

The work in progress animation was showcased at the Conference on Sunday, March 6, 2022. The work was presented by Dr. Christine Veras and the undergraduate students Scott Huddleston, Kirstin Stevens Schmidt, and Ana Villarreal in a panel moderated by Dr. Nils Roemer.

During our research phase, Dr. Roemer introduced us to Dr. Ozsváth’s book “When the Danube Ran Red,” where she tells her personal story. Chapter 23, “Witches’ Shabbat,” was particularly visual when she recounted when she and her brother were separated from their parents and taken to the ghetto in Budapest in December 1944. Inspired by her story, I discovered Dr. Ozsváth’s testimony to the SHOAH Foundation. She was 64 years old when she gave this testimony. When listening to the four tapes of recordings, one particular segment stood out when she experienced a defining moment in her life.

Inspired by Dr. Ozsváth’s writing and testimony, Dr. Veras created the script used as a guide for the storyboard, and the visuals were created by the students working on the project. From the start, students had creative freedom to interpret and participate in different phases of the project, exchanging ideas, critiquing, and proposing visual and technical solutions for what the story needed.

See below a few images of the ongoing production.

“A Lasting Image” has been part of the official selection of four international animation festivals so far, including a festival in Ukraine, and it was awarded at a festival in Italy. The film is also part of the ASIFA International selection and has been screened in multiple places in Poland, India, and the United States. Full program available here: https://iadasifa.net/2022/10/11/times-and-showings-around-the-world/

In the news, the UTDallas Magazine published an article about the production of the short that can be accessed here: https://magazine.utdallas.edu/2022/10/24/labs-holocaust-film-moves-audiences-draws-upon-unique-collaboration/

Watch the full film here:

Collaborators, Event, Experimental Animation

Animated Perspectives

Animated Perspectives on Violence Against Women
March 1st, 2022
From 4 to 6 pm
At the Davidson Auditorium at UTDallas
IN-PERSON EVENT

Our lab’s director, Dr. Christine Veras, in partnership with WiA, the Student Club Women in Animation UTDallas, and the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, have put together the event: Animated Perspectives on Violence Against Women.

Originally planned as part of the commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the event grew into a screening and panel of discussion around the topic. Instead of taking place on November 25, as established by the United Nations, our event happened on March 1st to kick off the celebration of Women’s History Month.

With a program specially curated around the topic, each animation uses experimental techniques that were all created by women, displaying different takes on violence against women. The animations screened were:

Awakening the Goddess (2020) by Debjani Mukherjee

Granny’s Sexual Life (2021) by Urška Djukić and Emilie Pigeard

Each animation portrays different types of violence against women, using a wide range of experimental animation techniques to invite the public to reflect upon the situation and sometimes even offering a way out. In raising awareness of these issues while also celebrating the female body, these films help to empower women to accept and love themselves.

The screening of the animations was followed by a panel discussion between the public and our guest panelists: the President of the Wia UTDallas Jennifer Garcia, WiA officer Eliana Nark, Assistant Professor and Director of experimenta.l. lab Dr. Christine Veras, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the School of Arts and Humanities Dr. Shilyh Warren, and the Interim Dean of ATEc and A&H, and Director of the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies Dr. Nils Roemer.

Acknowledgments

We thank our collaborators at WiA UTDallas, the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, the School of Arts and Humanities, as well as the filmmakers Zeynep Akcay, Debjani Mukherjee, Camila Kater, and the distributors at Feel Sales Documentary & Short Films and IKKI Films for their support in making this event happen and allowing us to screen their films. A special thanks to the support team at the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication, UTD Facilities, and JSOM for all their logistic support.

Collaborative Projects, Collaborators, stop-motion

Covid Habit

“Covid Habit” is a short animation produced in the experimental.l. lab in 2021, directed by Elham Doust-Haghighi in collaboration with Sara McClanahan and Benjamin Wu.

Written by Elham Doust-Haghighi

The “Covid Habit” short animation was created in collaboration between students of the course Animation Studio II (taught by Associate Professor of Practice Nelson Lim) and produced at the experimenta.l. lab. The process of this animation can be divided into two parts. The first part was the character design and the making of the puppet. The second part focused on making the stage assets and completing the production and post-production of the animation. I did character design and made the puppet in the Stop Motion workshop held by Hamida Khatri at experimenta.l. In addition, Sara McClanahan created a larger pair of hands for the close-up shot.

Appearance traits link the character to the “Pandemic” concept. The character is designed to reflect changes in living conditions during the pandemic. He has no mouth and nose, representing the mask-wearing faces identified from the eyes and the forehead only. Also, in pandemics and virtual social interactions, clothing generally lost its meaning as a social requirement. At the same time, people are accustomed to sitting for long portions of time, getting used to the remote working styles that make the character’s buttocks and abdomen appear bigger.

For Professor Lim’s Animation Studio II course, we were required to create an animation related to the “Habit” concept. I took the opportunity to connect the character, designed with the idea of “Covid,” to a short plot with the concept of our new “Habits” as a result of the pandemic. During the Covid-19 pandemic, globally, people were worried about changing old habits, and getting used to the new lifestyle imposed on them as new habits started to be normalized. Among the six different pitched ideas submitted to that class, “Covid Habit” was one of the two projects selected by students’ to be produced. That is when Sarah McClanahan and Benjamin Wu joined the project.

Sara and Benjamin created the scene props with cardboard. After making the assets and testing them at the lab, we found that the puppet’s hands were unsuitable for the close-up scene. For this reason, Sara took charge to make a large pair of hands with the ability to be animated.

After troubleshooting and corrections, we set the scene in a station at experimenta.l. dedicated to the project and started the animation phase. It was the first time for the three of us to make a 3D puppet for stop-motion animation. For this reason, we made a lot of tests and learned through trials and errors, experimenting along the way.

When making animation with tactile hands-on techniques, like stop-motion, the process and meditative quality of the making experience is essential regardless of the final result. I have not experienced such quality in CG work, although most of my professional work experience has been focused on CG work.

The short is one minute long and is now running its festival rounds.