John's Learning Journal

It’s hard to talk about my influences, because I’ve been fascinated by animation since I can remember. Disney, Gerry Anderson, Thomas the Tank Engine, British Stop-Motion. I don’t remember being introduce to these things. They were just always there.

Th 1990s is a heavily romantized period in animation. One where fresh new voices where speaking up and new ideas being tried. Animation in America had been in a slump during the 70s. But across the 80s people started pushing the limits of the medium in both film and TV. By the time The Little Mermaid came out, one year before I was born, the medium was full of confidence. Over here in the UK, the successes of The Snowman and Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends had caused a huge upswing in the quantity and quality of small scale animation in TV and short film. Canada was edging into television, and Japanese stuff was starting to get English dubs. And I was on the receiving end of all this amazing stuff.

It was also there period where hand drawn animation was at it’s peak. The technology was the best it had ever been and the money and information was spread around so more people than ever could do it.

The 90s is also remembered as the time 3D took off. But I was born in a sweet spot where I was too young to find it surprising, but too early to for it to be the norm. I make no disguise about my loathing for how Pixar killed 2D animation basically singlehandedly. I don’t think Toy Story did anything of note accept be in 3D. But for whatever reason the people have spoken, and they refuse to watch 2D films. Killing off the medium almost the day the 2000s rolled around.

I also feel Pixar killed off real stakes in animation. Their films tend to be small scale and relaxed. Even ones that technically have stakes are slavered in humour and tangents so we all know nothing too bad is going to happen. The sense of scale and awe that movies like the Lion King had, or the no hold-bared darkness of the Land Before Time just isn’t there in 3D animation. Maybe it could be. But it’s not because in Pixar characters almost dying is considered really dark.

Wonder is also gone. Movies don’t try to take you to strange new worlds that feel like waking dreams. Everything has to be down to earth and mundane, lest we be accused of taking things too seriously. But maybe it’s just a problem with the medium. Humans never look good in 3d animations. They either look too realistic like in the motion capture films. Or too unreal. It doesn’t help that human skin looks like fudge in 3D. So maybe that’s why everything has to be bland and safe. Even when 3D films like Frozen try to capture the old wonder of the 2D films, the spark just isn’t there.

So yes. I am bitter. We traded dreamlands for mediocre comedies. But bitterness never built anything. I’m just making it clear there just isn’t going to be much past the 90s on this list.

England’s Channel 4 had been funding small, independent animations for sometime. And needless to say I loved these short, self contained, and rather mysterious films. I’ve talked about the ones that really captured my imagination many times. But we’ll go ever them later. I want to talk about where I got into animation.

I started pushing my boundaries when I was 18. Trying out serious dramas for a change. Trying to understand why adults liked them so much. It interested me, but didn’t quite click yet. But it got me interested in trying seeing what else I could do. This got me to make a list of some animations I wanted to try watching. I realised that what I thought I knew about animation was merely the tip of the iceberg.

I started collecting rare and obscure animations by single animators. Lotte Reiniger, Caroline Leaf, Jiri Trnka, Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren, and Yuri Norstein. I didn’t get to hear about these all at once. But the stories about people like this lit my mind on fire. But I didn’t quite want to animate yet.

Then one day, an idea popped into my head. I remembered a book I’d read some years ago. The Graphic Novel Flight. This is my first influence

Flight is a collection of short stories in comic book form, written and drawn by small authors who met on the internet. The artwork is gorgeous and each story is utterly unlike the others (While still being cohesive.). It feels like a strange little treasure box of odd ideas and adventures, each taking you to a new world. Strangely, the many different art styles and genres don’t clash, but seem to enhance each other. Like music. It may all be all be written by different authors, but it makes a whole. The individual stories make each-other stronger. And you couldn’t put the stories in the same order and have them as good.

And the book just has this sense of wonder and adventure to it. Whether the stories are set in fantasy worlds or the real world, things just feel new and exciting and interesting the way they do when you’re a child. It really does feel like a discovering a box of treasures. But there’s a little bit more.

The final story is a text piece by comic book critic Scott McCloud, called ‘The Year Comics Took Flight’. It’s set in the future. In it, the a narrator tells us that in his future comic writers have taken their influences and moved onwards into a a world were the medium has grown and taken flight, become more than the minor artistic backwater that largely only did the same few things into a creative movement where artists help each-other and work in harmony. It’s a lovely vision. Albeit one that seems rather naïve as of the internet today. We really didn’t see the big megacorps taking over and thought the internet would belong to entrepreneurs forever. But that’s life. Doesn’t mean the dream still doesn’t have value. And That is Flight. It’s not just a series of adventure stories. It’s a hope for world where artist can help each other grow and move on to greater things. This really struck a cord with me.

One day when I was out walking it just occurred to me that the many different art and narrative styles in Flight would make it great vehicle for showing all the different styles a techniques I was learning about. Cel animation, cut-out animation, supposition, rotoscoping, pixilation, hand drawn animation, painted on glass! Each story could stand for a new technique. It would be a celebration of animation and its many forms, and it would also be a promise of all the amazing things people would do in the future with animation. How the various fields of animation could come together and build a world where all the arts could work together in harmony!

My dream seems even sillier to me than McCloud’s does now. I knew nothing about how raw and bitter the history of art movements is, and how new movements are often spawned in objection to the old. Not only is uniting all the arts (through animation no less) an even loftier goal. Not only is the amount of pessimism, cynicism, anger, and distain in the arts huge. It would be wrong to supress those for my own vision of mutual-inclusivity, even if I hate it. And that very instinct for arts to clash against each-other and the habits of new artists to reject the old may be necessary for the arts to work at all. Maybe.

When I started slipping in education, my ideas about turning Flight into an animation started dying. I couldn’t make myself draw a storyboard. How would I ever make it into a feature film? I eventually gave up on it as a foolish child’s dream. How do I feel about it now? Well. Let’s put a pin in that. We’ll come back to it later.

My time in higher education was hard. I struggled to get the qualifications I needed to even get a foundation course. And the foundation course itself was a nightmare. Pure hell. I don’t know if I deserve to be here. But I made it.

Across my community college years and my foundation I was constantly asked (and pressured) to try out different art mediums. And I did find I took to some of them. Sculpture and painting are just fun. And have less pressure than animation. I wasn’t totally sure if I would return to animation or not. But a small exercise drawing a train pulling into a station (I swear I wasn’t consciously thinking about the first film ever shown, honest.) I knew animating could light a passion in me the others couldn’t.

When I first arrived here I was beaten and bruised. Life had not been kind to me. I couldn’t remember why I’d chosen animation, only that HAD chosen it. But I knew from the start I wanted to do it the old fashioned way, with paper and pencil. The past few years has been me testing my limits in this medium. Most can work faster than me. But I have a commitment to animating at a high framerate with smooth, continuous movement, as few shortcuts as possible. And looking realistic with weight and overlapping action. This stems from my second influence here. Richard Williams.

Like most animation students, I started off reading ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’. I didn’t just find it useful. I found it mesmerising. I related to Williams’ dreams of ultra fluid 2D animation. I loved his stories of cranky old animators. And I fell in love with his unfinished film The Thief and the Cobbler

To this day I don’t think there’s been a more amazing work of animation production. I will never animate like this. It won’t stop me from trying.

Like me. Williams believed Animation could go into amazing untapped places. His vision is one I will always respect. And when I imagine animations in my head. I imagine them looking like Willaims’s animation.

If I ever do make that film of Flight. I want it to look like his stuff.

Reading Williams made me read ‘The Illusion of life’ by Thomas and Johnston . Which in turn got me to rewatch some of the old Disney movies with an animator’s eyes. Pinocchio had never meant much to me before. But now it blew my mind. So you can add classic Disney and Pinoccio in paticular as an influence

I struggled through. Honestly I feel I should have failed the course a few times. But for whatever reason, I’m still here.

I find It hard not to be bitter. Much Like Proust and Joseph Cornell, I find myself dreaming of a past who’s even bitterest memories seems to have a supernatural quality the the mediocrity of the modern world doesn’t have. Whether there is any truth to that is hard to say. Those two would have found my childhood every bit as gaudy as I find today with it’s smartphones and CGI. But it is what it is.

I felt only niche indi animation could be my future as no-one would want real hand-drawn animation again. Then Green Eggs and Ham dropped.

It did things I’d never even seen before, and with such ambition too. I was amazed anyone would make something like this, let alone today.

It got me interested to actually try doing hand-drawn animation with TV paint. And it saved my bacon later when I needed an animation in a hurry later. So I feel no shame on counting the animated Green Eggs and Ham as one of my influences. It’s given me hope for the future of the medium.

At the start of 2020 I had a very nast cycling accident (those who were there will know). It left me shaken and barely holding it together. I returned to uni. But I was mostly there in body alone.

For reasons I don’t really understand, we had to make comic books at the time. I couldn’t decide what to make mine about. But I remembered a line from one of my favourite cartoons. When Keyha the Gull has been talking about his lost love, Natasha, he’s asked by the rabbits to go on a recognisance mission he responds “Don’t know if Keyha can fly. Heart so heavy” (Timecode: 14:26)

That’s how I felt. Like my heart was too heavy to go on. But go on I had to. Then it hit me. I would make my comic about rabbits like the ones in Watership down.

The 90s Watership Down series remains my favourite show of all time. I can’t even explain why. But inspired me to take the danger and loneliness of the show and crank it up into a horror story which would allow me to explore my pain and disorientation. Linked below is the journal I wrote about it

https://johnhawkart.wordpress.com/2020/02/10/kamblamo-week-4/

Even the rabbits in it are somewhat based on the ones in the show. Ghost is a less confident and less quick-witted Hazel. Strype is Fiver with less cynicism and slightly better social skills. And White Tail is my favourite character in the series. The ever acidic and morose Hawkbit! (

Skip to 10:08 if the video doesn’t take you there already)

At the very end of this project we were asked to make a small comic on one piece of paper. I took my three rabbits and put them in light-hearted story where they find a parsnip and argue over if it’s a carrot or not. And here we are now.

I proudly claim the 1999 Watership Down series as an influence on this piece. Not just on the characters. But the look of the backgrounds, the designs of the characters, the way they’re mostly like real rabbits, but humanised in a subtle ways. The dialogue-based humour, and I’ve even tried to recapture some of the rhyms of the show’s animation. But with more fluid animation.

When this year came I decided to aim for something big, but not too big. Animating my rabbits and their parsnip was the only thing.

I considered doing it in TV paint. But really I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t do this the old fashioned way. But how? I didn’t have the time to do it with cells and inks. Well. Anyone who knows me knows I have softspot for hand-drawn animation all done with coloured pencils. Not only does it really hit me in the nostalgic part of my mind. But I feel it is the rawist and realiest form of animation there is.

it was the many short animations that came out in the UK during the short film movement that introduced me to this style.

The Snowman was the one that started this trend

But the others are closer to my heart and influenced my interests more.

Grandpa Was made by the same People. The Illuminated Film Company

As was Father Christmas

But the one closest to me, The Angel and the Soldier Boy, was made by Alison De Vere. One of england’s best independent animators

I dream of making animations like this. Something that might enchant another small child the way I was by them.

Many years later, when I was really discovering the world of independent animators that I found to my delight there was an animator who not only worked in this style, but pushed it to its limits, and did it on his own too.

That man was Frederic Back

I had to give it a shot in this style. Nothing could make me happier.

I could go into so many things that influence me. It’s not a short list. Hitchcock, Shakespeare, Hubert Selby Jr, Clive Barker, Chagall, Video Games, The Bible, Samuel Palmer, Fairy Tales, C S Lewis, The Simpsons, Francis Hodgson Benette, REM, Marvel comics, Stephen King, Tolstoy, Sonic the Hedgehog. But I wanted to talk about stuff that was at least somewhat related to this. Talking about all the things that influence me in some way or another would take forever.

To summarise: The big influences that got me here are, but not limited to

• The independent animation scene. From Lotte Reiniger to Alexander Petrov
• Flight Volume 1
• Richard Williams
• Classic Disney
• English Picture books
• Watership Down. The 1999 series in particular
• The work of the Illuminated Film Company and Alison De Vere
• and Frederic Back

I didn’t take me long to figure out what is has I wanted to do. Doing it would be easy. All I needed was a light box and some pencils. Only the background might give me trouble. Specially when I found out frosted cels (What The Illuminated Film Company used to make their classics) were no longer being made. But Owen agreed to help me with the BG via computer.

I had a script ready when I arrived. Most of the autumn term was spent doing prep work. Thumbnails, storyboarding, Designing the background, and some basic character design. It’s all covered in this journal

https://johnhawkart.wordpress.com/2021/11/01/where-i-am-now-and-my-future-fears/

Then I refined the character designs

A Terrifying Crash Course in Character design.

I’m amazed I pulled this off. It feels like someone else did it. It’s been years since I pushed myself with drawing from imagination like this. I remember how thinking I couldn’t draw a storyboard broke me back in 2016. And here I was doing so much more! I think raw fear pushed me forwards. I was too scared of failing to be scared of screwing it up.

Later, with some help, I got a soundtrack and an animatic

I’ve made an Animatic

This meant all I had to do, was get started.

When I came back in the new year I was hit with the worst case of agoraphobia I’ve had in years. Possibly tied with the worst one ever. I didn’t go out at all in January and had trouble staying out doors even for an hour for most of February and March. But against all odds, I turned it around. Re-reading my thoughts at the time it feels like someone else’s words. I can’t believe I could turn something like that around. But somehow I did.

Here’s what I wrote about it

Getting back in

After I had all my keys drawn, things just started falling into place.

Turns out the raw animating part of animation just works for me. Eventually, I was staying in till six and longer again. Here are the updates I made

First Animation

Making Progress

Two seconds

Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m dwawing wabbits!

Help

That last one I made as the end was nearing and I was often working into the night. All rabbits and no rest make Uncle Jack a dull boy.

This is the workstation I did my timing ant editing at

Here are three of the X-sheets I used to keep track of my timing while drawing

This is the lightbox I used. Ready for drawing

And here’s an image of me losing my mind drawing bloody rabbits

This huge pile of paper…

… Is my entire movie. Just think of that. A whole film in a pile of paper!

And these are some (Not all) of the pencils I sharpened down so much they became unusable.

Sanity is for the weak!!!!!

Can’t lie. I’m glad it’s over. I wish I could have coloured it all in and made a truly complete film. But I have a complete story that’s fully animated. And that’s amazing. I hope I get to really finish it someday soon.

Now I’d like to go back to an earlier point.

I might not be Richard Williams. But I clearly do have what it takes to be an animator. Maybe even an animator artist.

So, with all that in mind. Have I still given up on Flight? On the dream that started this all?

Well I know I’m not the sort of genius who could master every animation style. Let alone do any of it quickly. At most I could only direct others with most of it. But I’m feeling like cautiously putting it back on the table. I could animate a few bits of it myself. Some bits I feel would be best done in some form of hand drawn animation. I already have some ideas….

Call it a long-term goal. For now though, I want to try my hand at painted on glass animation. It’s something else I’d like in the film. And I can think of some stuff I want to do in to medium for its own sake. I’d like to make an abstract or two. That sounds like fun. Might also help me get noticed in the animation scene too.

Kudos.

Well. I don’t know If I’m doing well or badly. Probably both.

I want to get more done. I feel like I can’t get the amount done per day that I need. It hurt because I’ve really got my groove back. The one that lets me work for hours at a time. Granted I’m probably not at my peak. But I’m making strides. Often getting two seconds or more of footage a day. This from a guy who back in February was struggling to come in for an hour or do even one drawing! If only I had two more months this would be a snap! It’s not fair. I’m going to try to get an extension with mitigating circumstancing. Given for a month I could barely go outside, I think it’s fair. But I still don’t know id that’ll be enough. But I’m not going to give up. One way or another, I’m seeing this through to the end. But if I fail. It’s going to hurt. A lot.

I think my animation is really improving. Like leaps and bounds. This feels like the work of a real animator. It’s crazy. Just look it at!

This is better than it has any right to be.