Computer Animation

The Body/Mind of the Animator Transformed

When Simon Fraser University Ph.D. student Leslie Bishko, then a virtual unknown in the world of computer animation, began turning heads with her three-minute film Gasping For Air, she set her work apart from the often cold and stiff perceptions of computer animation. Here, she describes Gasping for Air and the process she went through to impliment a sensual component to her work.

hen computer animation emerged into the mainstream in the mid 1980s, I believed that computers could never accomplish the qualities of hand animation methods. Today, I call myself a computer animator and still make the same statement. I recognize that varieties of animation methods promote differing qualities and elements of style, which are made unique by how their aesthetic sensibility is merged with the tools. I have found this merging process both rewarding and strenuous. About her use of the scratch-on-film method, animator Caroline Leaf has said that she wanted to put the least amount of technology between herself and the movement her characters. This statement rings loudly in my ears, resonating every time I sit down at the computer. However, I am satisfied with my accomplishments so far, and with the potential that exists for developing my work in a rich and interesting way using computer tools.

For me, animation is about expression with movement visualized within the formal context of cinema. In order for the movement I create this type of expression, I need to manipulate the visual elements within each and every frame, with methods that give me a flowing precision in the process. This sense of flow is the merging of my kinesthetic sensibility with the animation media. I call it "feeling between the frames" -- each frame of animation indicates an abstraction of movement happening between the frames. As I animate, I anticipate the abstracted form through which the flow of my animation process will communicate feelings to the viewer.

The animation media and methods I choose reflect various aspects of my creative sensibility. Based on my background in hand animation methods, when I started working with computers, I challenged myself to communicate on a kinesthetic, visceral level, with three dimensional movement. This has become my particular creative bias. Others animators exploit the mathematical and conceptual complexity that computing can contribute to temporal image making.

Computer animation interfaces form abstract representations of the animation process, facilitating global, abstract thinking. However, when it comes down to it, the animator has a seemingly infinite range of parameters to deal with. Software offers ways of grouping parameters together and controlling them from a more global perspective. Depending on the software, animators have varying degrees of choice within this local-to-global domain. These factors can promote creative control over abstract concepts, while inhibiting the flowing precision of the subtle details that enhance expression in movement.

In making my three minute piece, Gasping for Air, I grappled with many of the above issues. I began the piece at a time when I was forming a keen awareness of my own body/mind duality. The process of animating presented the dilemma to me -- transforming my kinesthetic self into the creation of animated movement on the computer, involving translating my bodily feelings into numerical abstraction.

My film's central theme is that if one can find harmony within, one can find harmony in the world. The inner duality is represented by a rusted automobile muffler drowning under water, and a stainless steel kitchen pot flying among the trees. A bridge, a water tower and chimney pipes appear to co-exist peacefully within the natural landscape. I created a sound collage to evoke a feeling of this outdoor space, including water, birds, and obscure, clipping sounds to form a rhythmic baseline. The sound inspired the scenes, the transitions between them and the movements of the objects. It gave a feeling of movement which became the inner drive within the objects and visual components of my imagery.

The muffler and pot were seemed arbitrary images at first, but as I worked on the piece, I discovered many metaphors layered within them. The muffler, resisting and fighting, is suffering from inner torment. Its rhythm is akward and uneven. The pot image is fleeting. It flies freely through the air, which makes it appear to be in more than one place at a time.

The animation software presented its limitations during myI work. After exploring several methods for manipulating the surface of the muffler, the difficulty boiled down to the method of interpolation. I was unable to blend the control of the surface with the timing of the interpolation in a refined way. Special purpose software was written to give me a better way to control the flow of feeling I wanted to create. Another significant aspect of control was my choice of shapes for the muffler's anxious movement. The shape I chose gives it an impression of emoting from it's centre out to its edges. Both the muffler and pot initiate movement from a central energy source, thus creating a feeling of intention and will.

During Gasping for Air, I also was studying Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), a theoretical framework for observing, describing and interpreting movement. Some people may be familiar with Labanotation, a system of written symbols commonly used for notating dances. I believed LMA and Labanotation would help me transform my kinesthetic feelings into animation. As I worked on my film, I would notate the kinesthetic sensations that I wanted to include within each phrase of movement. This symbolic language helped me become very specific about movement qualities and how I could communicate with them. I used Labanotation as part of my creative process to analyze my kinesthetic sensations and break them down into animatable components. It helped bridge the mind/body split I was experiencing in the animation process.

Another important aspect of gaining creative control over the animation process was collaborating with computer programmers. During the time I was a student at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) at Ohio State University, where I began making the film, we used proprietary software written by staff programmers. We also took a fundamental C programming course that enabled us to write simple programs that were dynamically linked with the animation software. Occaisionally solutions were found by adding new features to the software base, or extending the capabilities of existing features. This enabled me to think beyond the limitations of the software, a valuable tool for an artist who must cope with the politics of being empowered in creative interactions with technology.

While collaborating with technologists has had its long-term benefits, it was not always smooth sailing. Communication was essential. I learned many lessons about being both an artist and a woman in a technical environment. While I strove for self-sufficiency, I was completely dependent on the University for access to a workplace; on programmers for technical assistance; and on the software and machines themselves. It was a delicately balanced system and I had to poise myself within it to remain creatively productive. Although I have technical knowledge, I have learned to limit my involvement with the technical. This keeps me focused on what I find is truly creative in working with computers. It also helps me to communicate better with technical people. I'm at my best in a right-brain world while others are their best in a left-brain world. It's useful to acknowledge and work within one's own boundaries.

The potential for creative control I experienced while working on Gasping for Air showed me that I could effectively design my own animation methods. Presently, I am completing a certification program in LMA and applying my knowledge to the design of computer animation software. By embedding LMA's descriptive parameters within an animation software interface, I hope to facilitate the exploration of complexity in the movement qualities I can achieve in animation. The software interface has various tools that are metaphors of kinesthetic experience, kept within the content of a keyframing and splined interpolation system. Primarily, I envision using this tool for my own animation production, but I feel it can make a contribution to LMA by visualizing components of movement process.

Holding firm to my creative ambitions has enabled me to make a piece that has universal meaning and to find satisfaction in exploring the nature of the animation process. I brought to computer animation a developed aesthetic based in personal independent filmmaking, animation and dance. I am not particularly enamored with the "cool" things that computers can do, or the exotic features of one software package as compared with another. Simply, certain aspects of the computer animation process are of aesthetic interest to me -- and there I focus on merging my creative process with the tools. The inventiveness one can achieve with computer animation belongs to the tradition of experimental animation. As long as one can merge their aesthetic sensibility with the tools, uniquely expressive work can be made.