Capitalism off guard

Capitalism off guard from Simon Robson on Vimeo.

Having been animating under camera for a while now, I've developed a few techniques which I'm starting to combine.

The first line in the voice-over for this section says, 'The sixties took capitalism completely off guard'. After a bit of toing and froing I came up with the idea of '60s' turning into a pair of scissors. This pair of scissors would then snip off a ball from a 'Newton's cradle' on an office desk, spoiling the party somewhat. This idea is partly shown in the work in progress clip below. The '60s' turning into scissors will be added at the front of the shot later.

I decided that I wanted to make the office from paper cut out layers and have the desk as real wood on which I'd place the different layers of paper. This way the shapes of the office made in paper would frame the desk, you'll see what i mean. I also decided that the office details should be line art, but not laid over in computer (I'm increasingly moving away from any 'look' a computer can spit out). So I made the office in Cinema 4D, created the line-art in the 'Sketch and Toon' non-photo realistic renderer and then printed each line art frame onto acetate. I then layered this acetate over the paper and wood. In case you dont know, acetate sheets are expensive and also an environmental abberation, so I only bought a pack of 25, but i needed to print out 90 frames. This meant I had to print on the wrong side of the acetate sheets (The side that doesnt dry) and clean off the ink so I could re-use them. This is why the animation starts to look messy.



People have asked why I've gone through such a laborious process to make something that could be made in a fraction of time in computer. I wouldnt dispute that doing everything in computer could have decimated the time spent, and a similar look could have been achieved. But I'm moving increasingly towards process orientated work. I dont get a 'look' in my head and try and create this, I think of a process that I'd like to try and then the look is almost arbitrary. It's a move away from work processes influenced by commercial pressures. Commercial work demands that you demonstrate a look to the client, get the thumbs up and then go off and execute it. This process, I feel, is terribly constrained, there is little room for discovery or the joy of happy accidents. In what I'm doing here I'm free to create whatever happens. After all, I'm only selling ideas.