HUM 203: The World in Motion, Animation in Theory and Practice

Assignment 1

Assignment 2

Final project

The Sleight Craft is, first off, not a trailer. Well, rather, it is, but there will be no movie following. Well rather, there will be, if someone pulls up to my house with a truck full of money and asks me to do it. I doubt, however, the likeliness of that.

This piece was made with a digital camera,(for raw footage) Adobe Photoshop,(for editing) Final Cut Pro,(for timing) and 5 patient actors.(for my amusement) The animation is essentially a bastardized form of rotoscoping, since I didn't completely redraw over the original still images.

The story entails the conflict between two characters, the Photographer(Randy Jefferson) and the Animator(Robbie Furtado). They are men who manipulate the ephemeral existences called Phantasmagoria; creatures who exist in our three dimensions, but in only one moment in time. The Animator forces the creatures through time, granting them fleeting life. The Photographer removes such Phantasmagoria from our world by preserving them in a single instant, beyond the Animator's reach - a picture.

Which of these men is right? Is animation- is life- a function of Creation, or of Control? Preservation, or Change? Observation, or Action? Or is it an endless conflict between two forces? I urge you, as you watch this piece- don't think about it too hard.