Before I say anything else, I need to acknowledge my advisor Dan O’Sullivan for convincing me to take this class. I had built a schedule that was centered entirely around my plans for a possible thesis, and Dan gently suggested that taking something unexpected would be good for me. He was right. I am hugely enjoying this class.

Animation is a seven week class, so we jump right in. There are two projects – the first is stop-motion and the second digital, using AfterEffects. Crys Moore and I seemed to have an immediate repor (based on our admiration of each others‘ Thaumatropes – who can deny the power of an exploding head and a man fencing a shark?) so we agreed to work together.

Our first idea was to build a story in which someone traversed a bunch of M. C. Escher landscapes, looking for his cat. When our teacher, Marianne Petite, pointed out that the project was better suited to AfterEffects, we dreamed up a claymation about a lonely guy who gets an unexpected package in the mail.

I really enjoyed this process. The physicality of the set and props (I was fresh off my discovery of the laser cutter, and was psyched to use it again for furniture) was really satisfying to work with, and though it takes forever, the slow pace also gives you lots to time to think about camera angles and alternatives to your storyboarded plans. It also forces you to distill your story down to its essence, because everything is so labor-intensive.

Crys has some still photos as well.