Monday Morning Motion Graphics

Not only did we create the titles and an animated sequence for Gail Levin's documentary on Cab Calloway the film was edited by Pascal Akkesson at our studio.

This proximity not only allows for close collaboration, it gives the possibility for quick fixes.

The European broadcasters needed a visual bridge to insert some narration.  We were given a couple pieces of art and asked to make something work.

It's by no means brilliant, but a simple sequence which filled a gap in the film.

Publicitie

The Cab Calloway documentary which we did graphics for and was edited at our place just got a four page spread in the June issue of the French Jazz Magazine.

The sequence of Steve Brodner drawing (which we then animated) was one segment of the film that was featured.

Here's the rudimentary gist of the caption: Cab Calloway was a black artist who embodied his era. His moves could resemble a cat and all sorts of other animals, he appeared in cartoons with Betty Boop and Silly Symphonies at Warners. His personality was cartoonish and energetic. Director Gail Levin brings out the elegance, allure, and unique manner of the archetypical dandy of Harlem. She brought in Steve Brodner, who works regularly with the New Yorker, to paint Cab in a grand style. The sequence is cut throughout the film as the figure get drawn.

I could have gotten that completely wrong. They don't seem to mention that the drawing of Cab pulls himself off the wall and dances with a real live guy at the end.

Maybe they didn't that far.

Step One, Two, Three...

Here's the final of from Gail Levin's Cab Calloway documentary we're working on.



The film may not make it Stateside for a little while, the primary client is in France. The US title is "Cab Calloway: Sketches".

Christina Capozzi Riley did the animation here. Ben Shapiro shot the footage, Pascal Akesson edited it at our facility. Then we recut it slightly for animation, matched the dancer's moves with original Cab footage and animated off that reference.

The dancer is Matthew Rushing from the Alvin Ailey company.

Edit: I forgot to mention the illustration is by Steve Brodner. Throughout the film he draws a life-sized Cab. Prior to the start of this bit, he finishes the drawing and steps out of frame. This sequence is continuous from that.

Flashy Animation

We had initially planned on animating this sequence traditionally.

Steve Brodner did the character design. He drew Cab Calloway on a wall sized paper, he steps out of frame and Cab walks off the wall into a scene with a live action dancer.

The live action was edited and we printed and registered every frame -spending a few hundred dollars on ink in the process. We then started to pull Cab footage as reference, his movements are strange and idiosyncratic.

It made sense at this point, after planning out the film in the old fashioned way, to try to animate digitally.

Here Christina has rotoscoped key frames which had been timed out against the live action dancer.  The next step is a normal inbetween process.

Essentially Flash is a simplification of a complicated process. Instead of layering paper over print outs on a lightbox, then scanning the drawings -each step a little further removed from the source footage -we're able to keep them all together. The animator can scroll through the live footage with the animation, test the composite, layer multiple images ("onion skin" to see the movement), and draw frame by frame art.

The style here is loose, and we've developed a good brush/pen line to mimic Brodner's line. Sometimes it requires extra clean up. Here these are a pretty quick cuts and he's animating on ones (because the live action is on ones) so the line doesn't need the perfect detailing we'd give some of the other Brodner work, like the Infor "Down With Big ERP" campaign.

Cab Slide

So we're working on this Cab Calloway film.

The way he moves/dances is incredible.  Here is a two second (50 frame @ 25) sequence of him dancing from one of his Betty Boop films without editorial break ups so you can scroll through.