Instagram YouTube

Learn More

Est. Reading Time: 4 Minutes

On Visual Style

MARK (M) As I mentioned earlier, your visual style has a certain level of elegance and grace (even though it contains flashing images) - I think this is partly due to the way you seamlessly transition into different animation styles and sequences. Please tell us about the purpose of using camera movements such as dolly zooms and slow camera push-ins to smoothly transition into different animation styles.

ANGUS (A) I appreciate your kind words, Mark. One of my main goals was finding or at least exploring ways to seamlessly transition between the mediums on screen; in this case, from a stop-motion puppet to a CG puppet and finally to a hand-drawn dancer. The slow camera push-ins, to me, allow the film to focus on one thing in particular instead of an entire scene which can be overwhelming at times. This allows an easier transition of medium as there is quite literally less on the scene you have to deal with. Pairing this with a dolly zoom, which I find a tad unsettling and tend to signify some kind of transition, makes the framing seem more abstract and in my opinion allows more opportunity to begin blending in a new style or medium.

A The transition sequence from stop-motion with CG background to fully CG in the first half of the film was actually completely unscripted and not planned in the early stages of development. I knew I needed to come up with a way to seamlessly transition between the two mediums, but found only thinking about ideas to be quite difficult. I needed to actually have both pieces of the film before beginning to problem solve the process of merging them. What I ended up doing was shooting boils of the puppet (close-ups, full-body, half-body etc.) from different angles as clips that I could use, then experimenting with the clips and using the ones that worked best to create the transition.

A Similarly, with the transition from fully CG to digital hand-drawn animation in the arc of the film, I knew I wanted the 3D puppet to explode and come back together in a different style, but did not know exactly how I would achieve that until I had both pieces of the film to work with. This transition was definitely the most difficult, but I feel that it paid off in terms of visual appeal.

On Process & Discovery

M In making and finishing the film, what did you discover and learn that you might adopt or further explore in future projects?

A Certainly! I think there is always something to learn in any film project. LOTUS is one of the first films in my animation career, and taking on an explorative approach to medium and visual style led to a result that I am happy with and learned a lot from. This film is my second attempt at any project with stop-motion puppets, my first being a school assignment that acted as the precursor to the stop-motion and CG implementation in this film. I now find myself appreciating and growing towards the medium more than I did before. The organic and textural style of stop-motion attracts me in the way it infuses with different stylized mediums so well, and I want to further explore the medium as a whole in the future to push this approach and infusion.

A This project also made me realize my ability in terms of 3D background design. I would love to create a film that utilizes full 3D backgrounds with composed 2D drawn characters, or maybe abstract forms, together. As a whole though, this project revealed my leniency towards mixing mediums in relation to music. I find the highest highs of inspiration for me come from music, and I want more than ever to further explore and capture the feelings and emotions of music and dance through visual art and animation.

Mark’s Final Thoughts

• I really like his description and portrayal of catharsis - the puppet physically exploding and reforming in a new shape captures the idea of emotional release and liberation very effectively.

• It was also interesting to learn that the first transition was completely unscripted - I understand and agree with Angus that sometimes you need to prepare and see the raw footage in order to come up with the best ideas and solutions for piecing together complicated scenes.

  Tags Animation Bourgeon Death Experimental

The founder of Hommage, Mark Shaba published this interview on 13.09.2022. Mark is a filmmaker from Victoria, Australia. He respectfully acknowledges the past and present traditional owners of the land on which he creates, promotes and screens art, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation who are the custodians.