MARVELOUS MOVIE MONDAYS!!
guest curator: Ben Coonley
theme for April: Self-Taught CG
Thank you, Echo Park Film Center and Facebook for allowing me to curate Marvelous Movie Mondays for April. This was way fun! I leave you with a 3D animated “literal interpretation” of Sia’s smash hit “Chandelier” by a YouTube user named Casina777. I discovered this uncut gem on Wendy Vainity’s “Liked Videos” playlist. It’s only got about 1,000 views so far…so we’ve got a lot of work to do if we want it to eclipse the “Chandelier” video featuring supernatural tween bouncy ball Maddie Ziegler (which has over 687 million views). But I think we can do it! Let’s make this go viral, OK?
MARVELOUS MOVIE MONDAYS!!
guest curator: Ben Coonley
theme for April: Self-Taught CG
The artist Jacolby Satterwhite recently Skyped with an auditorium of enrapt students in the Film and Electronic Arts Program at Bard College, where I teach. In his discussion, Satterwhite mentioned that his formal education was in painting. After completing graduate school, he decided to teach himself Maya (3D animation software) in order to bring to life a body of work he wanted to make based on drawings by his mother. As part of his unorthodox and highly labor-intensive production process, Satterwhite traces 2D illustrations on a Wacom tablet to create wirelike 3D forms, and composites live-action dance video into dense, dreamlike virtual worlds. He does all of the work himself (i.e. does not use assistants when he animates). The result of his enormous individual effort is some of the most personal, distinctive, and exuberant work being created in video or any other medium right now. I can’t think of another artist working today who is so good at combining 2D and 3D vocabularies, and who does such an uncanny job of merging real and imagined spaces.
MARVELOUS MOVIE MONDAYS!!
guest curator: Ben Coonley
theme for April: Self-Taught CG
This week’s MMM pick is a special effects demo reel by a 10 or 11 year old (?) boy named Kevin Lin. It was brought to my attention by the artist Paul Chan, who came across the clip when our team was hunting for web videos to show in the 2009 Migrating Forms Film Festival’s “Tube Time” competition. (Tube Time is a bracket-style tournament in which teams present found Internet videos to an audience whose applause determines the winner of each round.) Miraculously, our team captured the Tube Time championship that year, soundly defeating a the competition favorites—a cocky team headed by writer/curator Ed Halter.
Though this video is now seven years old (created in Adobe CS3!), “Special Effects Collection (Adobe After Effects)” is still exciting to watch in an age in which homemade special effects have become increasingly sophisticated. I think this is because of: 1) its economical editing (no one demonstration lasts more than a few seconds); 2) the dynamic performance of the young actor/editor (check out the intensity with which he snatches up light rays while maintaining a casual, deadpan stare); 3) the idiosyncratic details (Was that a Windows Vista promo?). This is resourceful, savvy, DIY light-and-magic by a young artist with seemingly boundless potential. We will all be lucky to intern for Kevin Lin when he grows up and takes over Hollywood.
Special Effects Collection (Adobe After Effects), By Kevin Lin
MARVELOUS MOVIE MONDAYS!!
guest curator: Ben Coonley
Hello, friends of Echo Park Film Center! Two things I need to admit before I get started: 1. This is my first Facebook post!!! (It’s true. I’m one of those elitist grumps who never joined FB. If I were on FB I’d definitely ask to be your friend.); 2. I’ve never been to Los Angeles. (Whaaat? Am I even American? Do I make films?) So even though I’m highly unqualified, I’m extremely grateful to be curating EPFC’s Magical Movie Mondays on FB for the month of April.
This month’s theme is “Self-Taught CG.” Some of the best work on YouTube (and the art world) these days is coming from amateurs who have taught themselves to use (and misuse) the increasingly accessible tools of 3D modeling and animation.
To kick things off, here’s a video by my favorite self-taught 3D animator, the Australian YouTube sensation Wendy Vainity. Wendy uses modified out-of-the-box stock 3D models and a wide variety of consumer-grade software to produce some of the most personal, funny, and emotionally evocative animated videos I’ve ever seen. Though she’s received a fair amount of attention from art blogs such as Salon and Hyperallergic, I don’t think her work has ever been featured on MMM.
This video is about Australia’s independence holiday which, like its American analog, is celebrated at the height of summer. This seemed like an appropriate choice for today, which happens to be Opening Day (the unofficial start of summer for baseball nerds such as myself). It perfectly distills the essence of the dog days ahead of us -— the lethargy and the ecstasy, oppressive freedom of spare time, bare skin, beer, wilted national pride, and yes, barking dogs. I love every every shadow and every awkward gesture. You should all subscribe to Wendy on YouTube if you don’t already.