May 25, 2011

8-BIT ANIMATION LOCKDOWN

In order to get away from the studio to clear my mind a bit, I went 8-bit.

I spent the May long week-end locked down at Quickdraw Animation Society 5th annual Animation Lockdown -a 48 hour animation challenge.
This year the challenge was to make an 8 BIT animation!

Here is a preview, below are a few screenshots from my animated film:



I made a 2 min. film in about 20 hours, including music, editing and titles/credits.  My film is titled AVERT YOUR EYES and it includes animation of wrathful deities set to 8-bit dubstep. I was the first 'team' to be completed his film, but I was on a 'team' all by my lonesome.

I was still a bit under the weather with this nasty persistent dry cough, I could only do at most 12 hrs. straight. Once I was done, sick or not, I was in a a celebratory mood........ I left the competition a day early thus completely avoiding the stressful rush to the finish line, thats pacing!

See these images move.

I totally have a new found romance with the idea of pixel art. It is almost counter intuitive, with advancing technology to be subjecting yourself to this creative constraint. It's almost a nostalgia for the past days of crappy Atari and Nintendo graphics and sounds. I have a well filled with new ideas based on this inspiration of 8-bit.

The thing that was great about this animation lockdown week-end challenge, Focused time on only one task, we were fed an watered an had exceptional technical support from Michael Welchman, but that's not all.  For me to work solely as an artist is a rare opportunity. I'm usually either teaching or solving other's technical problems, it was cool to be 'the artist'.

The real bonus for me was that I stayed out of trouble and away from party distractions this long week-end. The big payoff is the overwhelming feeling of satisfaction and achievement. I really enjoyed making something under pressure in an environment filled with like minded, creative people.  It saved me money and time and possibly my health.........kind of......I didn't sleep much though, but wait there's more.......... now I have another animated film under my belt!

~No worse the wear!~




Come down and check out our 8-bit inspired animations:

Wednesday May 25th at 9pm at the PLAZA theatre, followed by a screening of The Last Starfighter!


__________







1 comment:

Fay_Moose_Art said...

Great Great animation, and other people did well too. I really glad I went. It was really awesome expirience . and after movie was just so freacking funny :)
Thanks :D