TITLE: The Walk
STATUS/DATE: 2006
GENRE: Animation
APPROX LENGTH: Approx 9 min
LOCATION: produced in Columbia, South Carolina

WHAT IS:
A showcase of a made up character doing a "walk cycle"  to fulfill the requirement that every animation student has to go through- requirements were that it must be of a character walking and in the course of the segment he must , jump, trip, hiccup, or do something to break the monotony of the cycle. Walk cycles and such are some of the hardest effects to nail down as an animator, and is a good stepping stone to bigger and better things.

PRODUCTION:
This cycle follows the travel of the original character named "Moink" through surreal streets and wild brush forest environments. The assignment only required the two main things (seen above). It was my student trademark at the time to carry things father , and push boundaries so I made a case study out of backgrounds , and how they were effected by the actions of the characters in cartoons. I had taken note of one of my most loved cartoons Ren and Stimpy. In one episode about Firemen, the background seemed to skew to an angle to signify the speed of which the characters were moving. I was very happy with the the way things turned out. The characters in the windows of "The Walk" took advantage of reflecting realistic shadow forms of humans in various positions of rest and potential actions. I decided rather than to follow the character "Moink" at one angle (like instructed),  I would tackle the walk cycle from side view and the slightly more difficult to draw ---head on angle. IN addition to that still I designed the walk cycle to display 3 different speeds: a walk, a stride, and a run.

This was the first time in making media that I understood the purpose of developing a recognizable style. The Idea had been beat into my head for the first two years of college- "find a style", "develop a style" . During the creation of "The Walk" was the first time that the lightbulb came on and I understood what all the fuss was about, and why such emphasis was placed on this. Tim Burton has a particular style, creator of Ren and Stimpy - John K. and even Dr. Suess has a distinctive style as well. This was perhaps the first time in my life that I felt that I was developing a style that was consistent and uniquely my own that I felt comfortable with. Even weirder was the fact that it was something that I had been doing for years, but was just too down on myself to give it a real good go and see where it would take me. I never considered myself a good artist by any means, so animation was a challenge, but I felt that with limited resources at times for making films, animation was something that could be done on a limited budget, with more than savory results. Animation so it seemed was a new weapon of choice. No sets, no dealing with actors ( one actor can do multiple voices), no lighting just a few reasons why it can be so cost effective and flexible.

It was a design choice to do black and white, because in the midst of making my first animated short I did not want to complicate the design with color. When constructing characters, foregrounds and backgrounds in an animation sequence or short; if proper color choices aren't made it could at the very least be distracting to the viewer, but worse case scenario is  it could obscure or complicate distinction of the character's actions and reactions to props and environments. Often when watching the credits of cartoons you will see a specific set of credits for people that had to do with color design. This is a job that is not to be underestimated. Among other things it is their job that the colors not only stay consistent on the characters throughout every shot, but also that the rule book of that particulars cartoon world's rules are followed and consistent as well.