Interstícios. © Marina Estela Graça.

Interstícios
Marina Estela Graça also used a range of new technologies and worked entirely at home to create her film Interstícios, yet she looked to considerably older traditions within her work. In terms of animation history, the film would seem to be connected to Oskar Fischinger, with his visualization of music through abstract imagery and exploration of process, and Larry Jordan, with a distinctly alchemical feel; however, neither of these filmmakers is referenced in her own description of the film. Rather, she theorizes her work as being between 2D and 3D, as well as between "two types of conceptual representation of movement . . ." the more representational method of a 'Disneyan' approach and a more subjective, physiological suggestion of movement found in the work of Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Pierre Hébert, for example.

Using 3D Studio Max, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere, along with scanned images, Graça synchronized her visuals with the third and fourth movements of J.S. Bach's Magnificat. The result is a poetic work she created to demonstrate that "a technically complex filmic production can happen within normal human living experience," noting that production took place alongside her roles as wife and mother. She describes her biggest challenge as fully embracing the technology without letting it gain control over any aspect of her work. The film was created with financial support from the Portuguese state institute ICAM (Instituto do Cinema, Audiovisual e Multimédia) and the Portuguese public television network RTP (Radiotelevisão Portuguesa).

Graça studied Communication Design and enrolled in animation workshops before she received a grant to study at the Gobelins professional animation course in Paris, France, which was under the direction of Pierre Ayma. She continued her studies in animation through Semiotics and Filmology at the Università degli Studi di Bologna in Italy. She also completed an M. ph. in animation theory at Universitidade Nova de Lisboa, in Portugal. She later helped to found the first Portuguese degree with animation courses at Universitidade do Algarve in Faro, Portugal. She is currently working toward her Ph.D. in animation poetics.

Fetch! © Nina Paley.

Fetch!
In Fetch!, Nina Paley demonstrates in her own way the creative potential for one of the most democratic of all animation techniques, Flash. This seemingly simple story of a man, his dog and a ball that it chases employs a lot of cycles and changes in perspective. As a result, it was a perfect project for Flash, which is vector-based and therefore allows for consistent resolution when image sizes are changed. Aside from that, Paley was attracted by the affordability and small file sizes that result from Flash animations. A self-taught animator, the animation for Fetch! was completed in three and a half months.

Many animators are using Flash these days, but the twist in Paley's work is that she chose to finish it on 35mm film, soliciting donations on her Website to help finance lab costs. Paley speculates that this may be the first time a filmmaker has chosen this route, but in any case it is interesting to see this combination of technologies paired together -- Flash, the young 'quick and cheap' upstart Internet-related technology, with 35mm, the granddaddy 'complex and costly' traditional theatrical medium. Paley contends that she always envisioned it being screened that way, on 35mm. A lively score by Nik Phelps and the Sprocket Ensemble, with sound design by The Stikman, accompanies the 4.5 minute exercise in optical illusion. Within the film, the man and his dog shift in size, walk in and out of the frame in unpredictable ways, and otherwise confound 'normal' perspectives of vision. An interesting plot point is that the illusions finally cease after the man begins to meditate, resulting in a mandala-like image in which many dogs appear. When the man has reached inner peace, presumably, the story is resolved.

Paley works in the San Francisco Bay area of California and has created a number of other animated works, including a short I reviewed last month, The Stork (2002), which deals with the topic of population control.

Maureen Furniss, Ph.D. is founding editor of Animation Journal and author of Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics (1998). She teaches in the Department of Film and Digital Media at Savannah College of Art and Design, in Georgia, and is currently writing a book related to animation production.