FROM nothing to a photograph
with william sheepskin (2022)
This is a personal project in collaboration with photographer William Sheepskin. In this video essay I bring two of my biggest passions into one: animation + photography. I have been a fan of William’s work for a while, and early 2022 we had a chat about writing a script following the prompt “William’s basic guide to understanding photography”, touching on his developing process.
I was inspired by Oddfellow’s Adobe series on artistic disciplines. We are witness to a series of scenes from the point of view of an imaginary camera, where light, weight, and objects follow the laws of physics. Digital and vectors live in semi-real world settings but captured in an analog manner. As such, photos are hung on walls, and papers scattered across tables. The wind in the room will make the edges of cloth flutter and dust will lift when dropping an object on the floor.
Finished over 2 months during my spare time. Wrote, designed, animated, sound designed and music-edited this piece. It was designed in Ae and Ai, and fully animated in 2D in Ae.
I want to thank William for his time and dedication to the project, for his thoughts and insights, and for being such a cool guy.
Initially the style was a bit more cartoonish, and I was experimenting with real objects and type having uneven sides, and abstract shapes. Eventually some of those details found their way into the final version of the film, like the misshapen razorblade.
Not a Hattori Hanzo.
The major breakthrough was when designing the “Picture frame” shot. I started to test the idea of using real life light and dust, shadows and volume, applied to shapes and textures to simulate a photographic feeling. Scenes are the result of a combination of digitally designed objects and real textures, and they are subjected to realistic shading and lighting.
Time lapses are the name of the game right now.
I got to geek out and deep dive into cameras, lenses and gear. William’s collection of cameras happened to have some of my favorites, and I tried to be as accurate as possible.
Building everything in 2D inside After Effects is fun, it forces you to think outside the box and use tools in ways they were not originally intended to be used for. Unfortunately, there’s no substitute for hand animating each keyframe.
Selected frames:
Put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot