Week 10_Response_William

     For this response, I have chosen "Journey Through A Melting Brain" (The Stratacut of David Daniels).

                      Link --> Journey Through A Melting Brain (The Stratacut of David Daniels)

    Disclaimer: This video is a compilation of an Animator's work, rather than any specific short film individually. This is because David Daniels either did commercial work that lasts 30 seconds, or thesis films that last around 10 minutes.

    This compilation includes Daniel's segments from Gary and Mike, Peewee's Playhouse, Amnesty International, The Idiot Box, the Big Time music video, ABC (Michael Jackson), multiple TV station bumpers, and a counting segment for Sesame Street, in that order.

    Anyway, let's talk about David Daniels. He's an animator who did most of his big work in the 80's and 90's. He has done multiple forms of animation, but mainly worked in stop-motion. Later on, he even invented a new stop-motion format entirely, Stratacut. 

    When Daniels was a kid, he and his sisters used clay to craft a fake copy of their birthday cake. When they cut into it, he noticed how all the shapes were well perserved and never blurry on the inside. So, as he grew up and started working on animation, Daniels tested out the idea of creating multiple images out of clay and then pressing them together in one loaf. Once the loaf was built, he could cut a piece of the front, take a picture, then cut again. The result is stop-motion where the cut loaf slowly reveals the content inside. 

 

   In short, the ENTIRE ANIMATION is contained within the loaf itself, and the cutting reveals it in stop-motion form. 

               Here is a simple eyeball test made just for an eye to blink --> Eyeball Test

    

    When considering the requirements of crafting every movement inside a static object without being able to fully test how it looks from the outside, I find it a miracle that any of this works at all. I am certainly humbled that it exists. 

    While he never got to do anything super lengthy with this style, it made an explosive impact for the MTV generation it appeared during. Sadly, there hasn't been any major use of the technique since the title credits for the film "Freaked" in 1993. 

                                      "Freaked Title Credits" --> Freaked Title Sequence

    As of now, David Daniels is still around and occasionally does presentations at events to show his techniques. He also has a Youtube channel which features a lot of commentary for how he does what he does, which was a major boon to this research process.           

                                                                 David Daniel's Channel

    Hopefully, with the research and methods Daniel has left for us, somebody in the future generations can expand this format with the advantages of our newer technology. Perhaps 3D printing could streamline the assembly process for the loaves? Who knows, until somebody goes out and takes that risk.