PURE Animation 2012!

Participant Sasha Lorrigan with An Cathaoirleach Councillor Tom Joyce.

Hi all!

I recently had the pleasure of hosting the first ever PURE Animation Environmental Film School, produced in co-operation with the PURE Project and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
The workshop took place over two sessions in April and May, one at Mounttown Community Facility and the other at Cabinteely Community School. We had 23 participants overall, aged from 10-17 years old.

Before I go on too long, here are the four films: 

Struck ill by polluted water, Bob must come to terms with what seems an uncertain future...

created by
Eimear O’Connell, Sarah O’Neill, Megan Taite, Ben Callahan, Adam Doyle, Oriane Eymery

Project supervisor
Pádraig Fagan

Strange little green men have come up with a novel solution to their rubbish problem
- Dump it on Earth!

created by
Adam Cantwell-Xenopoulos, Sasha Lorigan, Philippe Lorigan, Sean McInerney, April Mooney, Amber Mooney and Ruby McAlister

Project supervisor
Eimhin McNamara

One man’s careless actions cause a global catastrophe.
Is there any hope of a second chance?

created by

Derek Wall, Ryan Palmer, Michael Andrews, James Hornillios, Anthony Whelan, Sarah O'Neill

Project supervisor
Pádraig Fagan

A ship dumps its cargo of nuclear waste in the Arctic, stirring something strange up from from the depths...

created by:Megan Taite, Jefferson Tolentino, Erwin Bonifacio, Robert Mullally, Shane Donohue, Jack Travers

Project supervisor
Eimhin McNamara

The films were facilitated by myself and Pádraig Fagan with the assistance of Carol Freeman and featured all-original music by the multi-talented Chris McLoughlin, all three of which have hosted their own workshops to boot!


With the assistance of Donal Mangan we also did some filming of the students at work and I have put together a little behind the scenes video to show how we approached the animation on A Bob from the Past and Rubbish Express, and also to give an idea of how much patience and concentration the students exhibited.



Here is a little slideshow of photos taken during the workshop:

Ian Davis of the PURE Project introducing the programme

Last week the films were premièred in the Kingston Hotel in Dún Laoghaire, presented by Ian Davis of the PURE Project and An Cathaoirleach Councillor Tom Joyce.

A captive audience in (L-R) Philippe Lorigan, Adam Cantwell-Xenopolous and Sasha Lorrigan.

Shane Donohue of Cabinteely Community School being presented with his award by Councillor Tom Joyce

Megan Taite with her award, her film Nuclear Winter is visible in the background.

After the screening, each student was awarded a certificate, presented to them by An Cathaoirleach.

(L-R) Sarah O'Neill, Adam Cantwell-Xenopoulous, Philippe Lorigan, Sasha Lorigan, Eimear O'Connell and Councillor Tom Joyce.

I hope you enjoy all the students' work!

Regards
Eimhin McNamara

special thanks go out to:Ian Davis @ the PURE Project
Kate Hynes & Dean Eaton @ Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council
Emily Keogh & James Moloney @ Cabinteely Community School
All the Staff @ Mounttown Community Facility
Deirdre Foran @ dforandesign
and of course all of the participating students!


PURE ANIMATION is an initiative of:
the PURE (Protecting Uplands and Rural Environments) Project
and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council


Photography from the première is courtesy of Jason Clarke Photography

Sound+Vision Animation Workshop

The results of last weekends workshops for the SOUND+VISION Music Film Festival, which took place in the Model Sligo.

I hope you enjoy!

Made with Pádraig Fagan and John Kanu
Special thanks to:
Lara Byrne and the rest of the staff at the Model Sligo,
Colin McKeown of Cinema Northwest,
and extra special thanks to Vivienne Coyle for helping us out over the weekend.

This Workshop was made possible thanks to funding from the International Fund for Ireland, and with the support of the festival partners: the Model Sligo, Irish Film Institute and Cinema North West.

Pádraig working with one of the students at the stop-motion workshop

The spinner class being shown a thaumatrope in action

A Truck Thaumatrope

Hiding behind some of the Model's patrons while doing some editing before I hit the road

Life Drawing Experiments

A series of videos made using my students drawings:



First I set them up encircling the model, evenly spaced, so that the rotation rate would not be too jittery. Each frame is made up of a drawing which would have taken between 10-20 minute to create, using a mixture of charcoal, pastels or whatever else is at hand, so for one person to just create the drawings would take about 5 hours, so the model would probably not survive.



I then photographed each drawing, working my way around the room in sequence, so I could keep track of the order of the drawings and how they are placed in the 360 degree view of the model.



After cleaning up the images a little digitally I then brought them into Aftereffects and lined up any points of reference in the drawing, using a vertical line going (usually) straight through the middle of the head, as the locus of rotation.



By piecing them together, we can see the consistency in the pose over the multiple drawings, what people concentrate on, what is on the periphery. The interesting thing is that even though many of the drawings are quite radically different, in proportions, tone, and colour, our eyes still prefer to view the similarities rather than the differences, and the sequence of drawings feels like one rotating pose.
A video by Aoife Balfe got me thinking about doing something like this a while back: vimeo.com/user5046445

Though attributing a drawing to each person is kind of tricky here is a full list of the Production Design for Stage and Screen Students which participated in these classes:

Make Up Design:
Sarah Butler, James Christie, Amy Connolly, Ruth Curran, Caoimhe Duignan,
Helen McGinty, Ashley O'Sheehan, Marie Sweeney, Hazel Williams

Costume Design:
Molly Burns, Claire Collins, Connor Dalton, Alexandra Delaney, Audra Levinskaite,
Emma Loughlin, Niamh Ryan, Sophie Shannon, Sinéad Smith, Caoimhe Smullen

Production Design:
Chiara Byrne, Victoria Carney, Niamh Devitt, Nicole Kelly, Emily Mahon,
Fiona Patten, Brian Phelan, Gary Monahan, , Nicola Ryan


Special thanks:Martin Marley, Mark Joyce, Laura Venables, Keith Foran,
and the Production Design for Stage and Screen 1st years!


Made with the participation of:
the Drawing Project Dún Laoghaire and the National Film School @ IADT