March 26, 2007
The future is animation…
For more than a year I’ve been dabbling in the animation of my editorial cartoons. Actually, the real hard work in bringing life to my cartoons is done by longtime friend Scott Blackett. We’re both rather new at this and we’re learning about it and getting better as we go.
The seal hunt was our first animated movie. At 30 seconds, it’s also our longest. It’s a bit graphic but it puts out a clear message about the seal hunt with great effect. White backgrounds, it seems, work best in terms of clarity with our type of animaton. Another cartoon about Victoria and David Beckham meeting the press after arriving in Hollywood came out rather blurry after it was uploaded to YouTube.
My end of the job is pretty easy, although there are extra steps taken as l execute each cartoon if an animated clip is in the offing. Specifically, the background and features need to be drawn separately. If a lot of movement is required, extra limbs need to be created.
Once all the parts are drawn and separated they’re shipped off by email to Scott who’s based in Toronto. I don’t know exactly what he does to bring about the magic of the movement but I always get a huge kick out of the end result. I’ll let him explain the process later.
So we’ve begun uploading these videos onto YouTube with hopes of getting some hits and feedback. You can find our profile here.
FEEDBACK
Newfies are an easy target. I don’t agree with all aspects of the seal hunt, but there are many worse culprits — like the shark hunt which is decimating the ocean’s eco-system.
Here’s my take on the seal hunt, with Pamela Anderson being clubbed instead.
http://www.weltschmerz.ca/blog/2006/04/thwunk_1.php
Still, technically, I think that animation really works well. And it’s always fun to draw blood.
– Gareth Lind (April 3, 2007)