Will Anderson

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0:13how are we yep I'm will I'm an animator and a filmmaker from Scotland and from the Highlands I'm from a place called the Black Isle which Wow someone actually knows what the Black Isle is it's not actually an aisle it's connected to Scotland it sorts of peninsula just so you know this looks a little bit like what I do I make a lot of character animated stuff I've been making short films for the last six or seven years since graduating from the Embera College of Art I still live and work in Edinburgh but and I'm making a documentary feature film at the woman which is killing me.

0:59But I'm getting there. And I hope that you would guys would hopefully go and see it when it comes out hopefully next year.

1:07But I'm not talking about that I'm going to be talking about my most recent animated short film which is called have heart which it's nice that ruin our call about two months ago when it went online which was very nice of you thank you very much. And it's about the life of a gif on the internet so I'm going to show you the trailer and then I'll talk about it ♪

2:15the great fact they were vibrating a little bit it's so exciting so this character was born on a train journey between Edinburgh and Glasgow so I've worked in a design company in Glasgow it's an company called ISIL they do a lot of stuff for museums and things for TV and stuff like that.

2:34But I was speaking the senior designer there when I started and he talked about how much time he spent commuting and he had worked there for over ten years and he said basically he had spent a year of his life on a bus which is just shocking and he said that like he used that time kind of wisely to like learn software which was cinema 4d or something like that.

3:01And I really got that really panicked me and got me thinking so I kind of started to throw like shapes together because I again I live in Edinburgh like like back and forth when I was doing this job. And I made this character there is a duck by the way you might not know him.

3:15But it is and I like I kind of like just making characters out of simple shapes and geometry and to hopefully like get them to kind of tell the story.

3:27That's a little bit more complex and just that contrast between simple simplicity and telling you know you know I don't know making a drama that kind of interests me I guess so am I made it into this little gift when I was on the train and kind of find myself interested and looking at it and feeling kind of sorry for the guy I think he's a guy sorry there was a girl in there's a film. That's made that I'm gonna you know explain but like I kind of find it kind of pathetic kind of like glass half empty glass half full kind of idea he's like trying to fly and he's falling a bit on the ground and he's doing a terrible job of it but he's also not giving up so to make that you know it's a gift and it it loops forever and whatever.

4:16So I was looking at gifts and what they do you know they think the maximum amount of colors that you can have in a gif is like just over 200 and so the first box over there is like that's all the colors that are in half art and as they that's a great limitation to have and then I noticed that you could kind of sort them by different things that you can sort them by their hue and luminance or whatever and popularity that's kind of I find that kind of curious like obviously what it just means is that it's the most popular color in the image but I kind of got me thinking about like wow never really thought about images being like their colors being more popular than other colors that's curious I wonder what like this.

4:33And then.

4:59I started thinking really about what this gift was you know if he's trapped online like I kind of thought that maybe like we're all a bit like that we were all kind of like staring our sorry said you know judge you guys I do this you know you're constantly like clap there's a constant clamoring for attention online there's just this like constant stream of like footage and like new content everywhere.

5:26And it just seems to be overwhelming so I thought I would start to try and tell a story about what it feels like to be alive online through this character that you've seen living and falling apart.

5:37So I from that point I kind of decided to get some sound on it my mate Keith he's done all of our films in the crash and he like made this really digital intense so it was sound I need to the loop and then I added these little lights or like all the likes that I'm like like Picasa you know sharing it with the world I'm thinking that it's really important when it's probably so but start to feel a responsibility for this guy because he's like he's online forever looping and feeling and you know what I need to tell a story with him. Basically.

6:14That's what I was thinking so basically what happened was I made it chronologically without any plan without any store storyboards or animatic by an animatic so film storyboard that I'm sure a lot of you know.

6:30But that kind of flies in the face of like how animations made in that you would always make a storyboard but I really didn't want to because one I didn't have any budget I didn't have any you know money to do this I was working at a design company and I was commuting so I thought I just try and make it on the train as much as I could spontaneously as spontaneously as possible and so I started to think okay maybe he's trapped in his little squares like he's on Instagram or Twitter or whatever and he like maybe wakes up.

7:00And then suddenly he's in a domestic relationship I kind of thought I would be kind of funny and like he's got partner and she's like what's wrong with you and he's like no I'm just having my dream and then.

7:11I started like swiping left and right because I kind of feel like that's how we consume things these days you know we don't you know life doesn't cut it like we zoom in and we zoom out. And we pinch it pinch out so suddenly the film was going to be made you know totally like without any cuts just swiping left and right it's kind of starting to become a little bit like like The Truman Show if it was set at an iPad that's what was kind of imagining because I love the Truman Show.

7:39So that's not a problem but and because he kind of starts to think that he is feeling like he's being watched and he kind of is because I'm manipulating him. So it's very yeah it's starting to become a kind of personal thing as I'm going along and because I'm going to work I'm thinking about work.

7:58And I'm thinking about his life just work it's like hey I take my work seriously I guess I make films and I think they're I don't know I put my everything into them. But is it like really stupid and does it matter not sure I really don't know what I'm getting increasingly anxious making this film so like I'm starting to panic a little bit.

8:20But yeah here he goes to work and he like his boss is like Mickey Mouse but like all the colors been sucked out of them. And it's just like not really impressed with the amount of work that he's doing and he's not like 3d enough or something like that so he kind of kicks him back into work no we're kind of like in a loop again we're kind of went full circle we've started with this loop and then I'm like unsure what I'm doing so I shift perspective and I start like add other loops at different points of the film.

8:54So I'm thinking about his partner now and maybe she's quite like the opposite of him I think she's kind of Zen she's like into yoga and not really like you know just like the opposite of him she doesn't really think like he does he's kind of starting to have an existential crisis about what he's doing and what his job is which is he leaves his work and he looks at the exit sign and kind of starts to think about his position and the world and starts to think that what he's doing is stupid and he should stop good home and they have bread for dinner like the Ducks favorite dinner that's funny that's what if even got like a picture of bread up there as well they they loved it the Carol breaks and like falls to bits and it totally freaks them out because he's like his world's crumbling around him and he does a bad thing and he snaps at his partner and he tells her to throw out and which pisses are off rightly so I think he kind of goes in a bit of a grump when he goes home and he looks up at the stars which are just these fluttering pixels that are above him kind of in the beyond he lives in this white space but he looks at that and he just thinks is this really what it means to be alive he's being kind of pathetic is like partner comes out and just says he's being melodramatic so he just goes to bed anyway he goes to work the next day and he is thinking about all these things.

10:29And then he loses his job really quickly and feels kind of about it. And it kind of feels again like everything's kind of collapsing in on itself so he has to go home and tell his partner that it's just I'm sorry I've lost my job she's really cool though and she understands and she just says look you can do plenty of other things there's a little montage by the way what I'm doing is I'm talking you through the film.

10:59And then I'm gonna show you it from a point just in case I didn't mention that before.

11:03But that's again I made this film chronologically so I can only explain it this way.

11:07This is the only way it works for me I'm sorry but anyway he tries three things I feel like we try three things when I feel like I tried three things really hard when I really like have a problem it's I think maybe that's wrong maybe it's just didn't film I don't know.

11:22But I think a character if they're faced with a real problem you you try really hard three times and then you give up.

11:28So it tries these things. And it doesn't they work to the point where he's faced with his partner and she's upset with him and she's she says like you're not really you're not really paying it you're not really like communicating with me and he just throws her a curveball and he's just makes reference to the fact that they're just shapes on a screen and he's just being like a dick basically to the point where he gets sucked out of the house because the whole time he's just been slowly pulled away from this partner of hers and it leaves her still doing yoga but she's now in the position where she feels like she kind of he's put her into this position which is really awkward where she now feels like she's being manipulated and yeah I know it's just not very nice of him really I hope you can tell that.

12:27This is a immensely personal film.

12:29But it takes this to the point where as I said before there's no story. But Iran or animatic or anything like that.

12:37But the film was made really kind of and like anxiously like I'm describing it but like I'd come up with an idea on the day and then I would just try and do it. And I know that. That's I don't know it I think that's a really difficult way to make the film.

12:53But that is the way that the film was made so I'm hopefully you know communicating that difficulty but we're up to the point in the film where he's going to make like this drastic step and he's gonna try and make a break for from it from where he is and I'm gonna leave you there and you don't have to hear me speak ever again here we are ♪

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16:05as you can probably tell I'm not very good at explaining how I'm feeling about things. But that's probably why I make animation. So I hope you liked it [Applause]