TITLE: Compost Composite
STATUS/DATE: 2006
GENRE: Animation
APPROX LENGTH: 7 minutes
LOCATION: produced in Columbia, South Carolina

WHAT IS:
The title "Compost Composite" came from the fact that this project was made from a bunch of discarded random images or "compost". The project was to use these images and only these images. The composite part came from the fact that the project was a "composite" of images.

PRODUCTION:
This is an exercise that animators do periodically when they collaborate as a type of barometer to get the feel of one another's style and degree of flexibility. It can be done over long distances and can be quite fun when the result is finally screened among each of the artists - using the same pool of finite images.

It started with a group of artists that uploaded no more than five images each to a folder on the Internet. From there each artist was told to use any images from the pool, but only the images from the pool. Then Cut-out style animation and beyond was composited in Adobe After Effects. Since the images were randomly selected from an anonymous pool I have had no idea wether they had copyright on them or not, So that is why there are not many images in this section. And since it was passed around for amusement just between artists I used Danny Elfman's theme from "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure". Since this was not being publicly screened, sold, or distributed - just turned in for an assignment, I couldn't help but to use that particular music piece. Looking back the end result was very Monty Python-esque. Terry Gillium being one of my favorite directors, must have influenced this project greatly.

I have seen one other variation of this exercise some years ago. It involved the following rules: the piece had to start with and opening of one door and ending with the closing of another.  Different artists rendered everything in between, and when strung together it looked like a path through several consciousnesses, and to my understanding never ended as long as compositers kept adding to it.