Southern Circuit tour day five. Columbia, South Carolina. Before leaving Clemson I visited David Donar’s graduate animation production class. The class was working on a group project and they may have wished they hadn’t invited me in retrospect. Not because I tore their film apart, I didn’t. They had a solid concept, good modeling and lighting, and the animation moved fairly well. It’s just that they were so far along in their process that the suggestions that I made to add some additional character development and questions about some of the motivation of the actions (why is the little boy stomping on the cereal box that contains the toy that he wants?) would necessitate alterations in timing and animation that they hadn’t planned on. Such is life. Just when you think you’re about done some Yankee comes along and questions you. Ah, but what is a Yankee? I may be living in Philadelphia now but I spent my formative years (2 through 18) in Georgia.
It was good to get involved in a dialogue about a film in process and I hope I was able to offer assistance.
Drove down to Columbia from Clemson and found my temporary housing for the night. A brief exploratory walk around the hotel environs left me with a muddy shoe and a long scratch on the back of my leg. Headed over to the Nickelodeon Theatre and met Andy and Larry in their basement office. Larry was excited about an upcoming meeting he had to attend so Andy was left in charge of babysitting the visiting filmmaker.
After a beer and some tasty crawfish we headed over to the cinema for the screening. The Nickelodeon is a small but friendly theater. They serve alcohol in addition to the standard fare and are looking forward to (given a board of trustees approval) a move to a larger venue with two screens.
Not a large turnout at the screening but the attendees were engaged and actually laughed at films that were supposed to be funny (the Clemson crowd was pretty silent; they may have been smiling but they weren’t emitting humorous noises). Several folks came up afterwards to talk and a few actually purchased copies of my dvd.
Afterwards Andy and I walked over to a local pub to have an additional beverage. Andy pointed out the prominent statue of Strom Thurmond next to the state capitol building where the engraving on the side was changed to alter the number of his children from four to five and to add the name of Essie, the segregationist’s child he fathered with an African American maid that was only revealed after his death.
Fascinating. I knew of the facts but not the statue alteration.
Thanks to Andy and the Nick for their hospitality, and the kind woman who lobbied on my behalf for inclusion in the Southern Circuit tour who handed me additional information and purchased a dvd. I’m sorry that my brain wasn’t able to hang onto your name. Just so you know, it usually takes me a full semester to commit the names of all of my students into long term memory.
Cheers,
Karl
Thursday, Feb 8, 2007 I attended a screening of several of Karl Staven's animations. The screening of these short animations spanned from the beginning of his experimental career to current refined and more conglomerate concoctions.
ReplyDeleteThese films can't help but to peak one's interest, if nothing more just for the fact that his beginnings were not in film or animation at all, but in psychology. This fact alone may provide some insight to his transformation into a filmmaker, more specifically an animator. Sometimes deeply intense, sometimes humorously askew, his end result leaves a lasting impression nonetheless. This can be backed up by the fact that many of those that attended this particular screening were aware of his work before.
He did a fabulous job applying his playful style combined with assorted techniques. He has enough talent and wide range of imagination to cover many areas. He stays comfortably within the boundaries of the surreal, and beckons you to let your mind free of organized thought. He guides you through a beautifully misshapen safari, full of wonder and life evolved from corners of the human mind and beyond. He steps out of the norm as well with all original sound designs, which he admits was a way around having to secure expensive rights. Every sound piece meshed flawlessly with his unique brand of craftsmanship, and perhaps were enriched because of his limitations.
I enjoyed meeting him afterwards. It is refreshing to see a creator so passionate with his craft.
His allusion to pretentiousness in relation to his production company's name must be a joke, because I find his works to be anything but. In fact he can he can back up everything that he does with meaning and resonance.
Hey Karl, I stumbled upon your blogg while I was searching for mine. Great comments overall, a nice summary of your travels. Your comments and insights were right on. My class really appreciated your feedback and they did incorporate as much as possible. You are right on about making comments late in the process, but that's what executives are for! Next time I'll get you down at the beginning.
ReplyDelete