FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| VISUAL ARTS Exhibit preview Quickdraw Animation Society's latest promotional T-shirt features Hamish D. Rat - a pot-bellied character with floppy, elephantine ears; droopy spindly limbs; tail; and genitals - nonchalantly appraising the initials QAS that he just finished pissing on the snow. A somewhat derivative cartoon, perhaps, nevertheless it's a feisty image that sums up the local non-profit group's independent approach to promoting animation art. QAS focuses on "classic animation" - not the slick, seamless computerized animation of Antz or Toy Story, but personalized labor-intensive processes such as claymation, and cel animation, which involves hundreds of drawings, or "cameraless" movies that are created by artists etching images directly onto 35-mm film stock. However, as QAS executive director John Freebury explains, classic animation also requires expensive specialized equipment. "Animation is different than any other media art form. When an animator begins to work on a piece of equipment it takes months, even years, and that piece of equipment can't be used for anything else." He proudly points out, for instance, the QAS - which is mainly funded by the NFB, Canada Council, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Calgary Region Arts Foundation - possesses a first-rate Oxberry animation stand. The $40,000-apparatus previously belonged to the NFB and was used to make Canadian film masterworks like The Big Snit and The Cat Came Back. Freebury says that once QAS obtained the Oxberry unit, it was no longer just an "animation appreciation organization," and started to take itself more seriously. In fact, he notes that over the past 15 years QAS has been the only artist cooperative in Canada dealing specifically with animation. "Quickdraw stands alone," pipes up animator/producer/director Devin Kurytnik. "There is no support for short films in North America. CBC, for example, pays about $75 a minute. So you spend three years of your life making a three-minute film, and they'll pay you less than $300 to screen it for a year or two." Although Kurytnik is taking a leave of absence to work on the 15-minute animated feature Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning, he has enjoyed being a QAS instructor. Each year, approximately 150 people participate in QAS programs, which run six to 10 weeks and investigate basic or advanced animation techniques. Younger students can enroll in Quick Kid courses and, according to Kurytnik, many of them move on to actually make films. As well as a large classroom, production rooms and an audio facility incorporating a four-track mixing board, the QAS resource library contains over 1,000 animated films and 200 books. Kurytnik says the most important thing a student can learn about animation is that it's an art of movement, timing and gesture. "Anyone can draw a stick figure, right? But can you make it look depressed? Or ecstatic? There's a bit of acting involved along with the drawing component." Both Kurytnik and Freebury believe that people hoping to become professional animators should spend a lot of time studying classic animation techniques. "Everything that we've seen," Freebury comments, "indicates that the digital world is trying to match what the film world has already accomplished. Essentially, it's a matter of waiting for the digital world to catch up to us." Still, QAS attempts to keep in step with technological advances. Even the infamous Oxberry stand, which Freebury describes as a Frankensteinian amalgamation of photo devices, is going to be "roboticized." In addition, the film cooperative has forged a stronger link with EM Media, which explores electronic media and moved into the same building as QAS this past January. The two artist-run centres are now able to share a 50-seat screening room that will eventually feature a top-notch video projector. QAS is holding its first Free Film Night of the season in the new screening room this Wednesday, October 21. A diverse selection of classic-style animation will be presented, including: A Wallace and Gromit film; a pair of Ren and Stimpy cartoons; The Man Who Planted Trees, by Canadian Frederick Back; and Faith Hubley's Cosmic Eye, a 71-minute fantasy with a soundtrack provided by jazz greats Benny Carter and Dizzy Gillespie. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 7:30 p.m. (QAS can be reached at www.awn.com/qas.) |