Nov 18, 2008

Sitting Bull (2003)

June 2003. I was home from university for the summer and thought it might be fun to make another attempt at a stop motion short. I dug out my supplies that had been boxed away since high school, and came up with another simple concept motivated entirely by my desire to use a western theme and the title Sitting Bull.

Obviously, the title is a literal play on a 'sitting' bull instead of on the Sioux leader.


What I've always enjoyed about animation is the ability to completely create your environment, characters, and scenes in a very specific and controlled way. It all sounds a bit compulsive, but when I was unable to execute my bigger ideas in live action, animation allowed a big departure on a small scale. Plus, it was always nice to present new characters that were completely original looking.

I've never thought of myself as much of an animator, largely because I become so eager to see the results that I don't take enough time to plot all my movements. Still, revisiting my old animations awakens a creative side of myself that I haven't considered in years. Just sprucing up these old videos has me thinking of new concepts and short animation ideas that I'd like to try.

In the meantime, enjoy this classic short from my earlier works.



4 comments :

Anonymous said...

I love this video! It really makes me laugh!

Anonymous said...

Montana Cowpie is the funniest name ever! Although your story of Sitting Bull is historically in accurate. I kid. Where were these animation projects in film school?

Editing Luke said...

I must have about 10 rough animations that were made through the course of high school, so I guess when I got to film school I was eager to give animation a rest.

I took Film 203 which was an animation class in uni, but all the projects I shot there really were nothing more than various animation tests.

As for why I never shared these projects sooner? I couldn't find some of them for one, and I also had it in my mind that they weren't very good. It took stumbling on to a cd with a copy of Clumsy Claus to refresh my interest and let me see that there was something worth sharing.

They've both gone over quite well so far, and I'm looking forward to creating my first stop motion in years very soon.

Pauline Evanosky said...

What a terrific video. Thank you for sharing.