SQUISH YOUR PUPPET
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10 probing questions
for Al Oldfield, aspiring animator and man of many parts. |
What is your preferred medium of animation to work in,
stop-motion, 2D or 3D computer-generated stuff? Stop-motion, hands down. There’s a brilliant organic look to it that just can’t be duplicated in any other medium. I had a crack at 3D back at uni. It was just too mathematical, all values and sin curves and key frames, ooooh...makes me shudder just thinking about it! And I just can’t draw well enough for 2D. You are still a relatively young man and yet you sported a full beard for many years. At what age did you first grow a full beard and why did you recently decide to shave it off in favour of the lamb-chop sideburns? I’ve had the burns since the start of yr 12, then I just got lazy and stopped shaving. That was until November last year… you had to start clean shaven for Mo-vember so I took the plunge and haven’t looked back since!  Is there a lot of animation going on in Australia that you admire? Sure, Adam Elliot is obviously doing great things and so is Anthony Lucas but there are a large percentage of stop-motion ads on telly at the moment, most coming out of Anifex in Adelaide. The Cadbury ad's come out of a small studio in Richmond and Sydney’s got some great studio’s as well. With the features that came out last year, there really is a rebirth to the medium and people are really getting behind it. Is there a risk of being perceived as a geek or a dork (or at the very least an emotionally stunted man-child) if you are a professional animator? Not really, you meet a lot of people with the usual, “Hi I’m Al, what do you do?” and you get the, “working at some firm, doing something or rather” or “just earning some money at a shitty job till this and this happens” and they’re not all that inspired by what they’re telling you. Then I step up and say “I get paid to play all day”. There’s something so fulfilling about not thinking of it as work. Having late nights not because something is due the next day, but because you can’t drag yourself away from it till you get this shot absolutely right or your puppets looks perfect. Doesn’t sound so nerdy now does it…?  Have you seen any animation recently that inspires you? Corpse Bride, The latest film by Tim Burton blew me away, because the animation was just gorgeous. The new King Kong was also stunning, to get so much character into him was a real turning point in digital animation and we’re going to see some pretty amazing stuff in the near future.
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