Sebastien's Voodoo

A 3D Computer Generated animation, that surprised me a lot more than I thought it would. There's something about it that has the qualities of a traditionally crafted animation. I don't know whether it's because the Voodoo Dolls look handmade or whether because it's in a craft workshop, but I think the texture's on the voodoo doll character's really add to this feeling.

Some of the background textures in the workshop look like they would fit into an older Game. After watching his Joaquin Baldwin's showreel there's a lot of his animations that have a similar feel to this.



I think it's important to put this showreel into context and say it is from 2007, and software has come on so much since then. You can see the improvement from this showreel to his short feature Sebastien's Voodoo made in 2009. And how amazing these character's for that year.

I think the biggest thing to recognise with these character's is that actually they are just like a sack but there brought to life so well, you empathise with them being strung up and you feel real emotion for the one who saves the others by harming himself in effect harming the creator. I think it makes it really powerful and improves the narrative dramatically when you can believe that these characters are living things with feelings.

So what is it that makes the viewer empathise with them? I think it boils down to a selection of little details that work together to make the Voodoo Dolls come to life. For example the bit where the little one stabs his hand to save the other Voodoo Doll, is successful firstly because of the breathing. On it own this might look over exaggerated, but is why it works so well in this feature, because we have other things to look at, such as the way the eyes frown. I also think all the tension is built up from the wriggling and trembling shakes that are really minor details but combined become really powerful.

I think looking at characters like these can really improve Moom, because these are basic characters and Moom's a basic character so there's a lot of similarities. So it should be easy to work on getting Moom have several little details that combine into a powerful performance.



Whilst researching Joaquin Baldwin I came across this video, which I thought was really interesting, aimed at people wanting to get into the animation industry. Although I didn't think it taught me anything I don't already know about the industry, I think it would be really useful for someone less informed. I also thought it was really refreshing to hear their background stories. I would of probably preferred more information on their backgrounds.


 

Joaquin Baldwin is also an amazing photographer, and although he hasn't posted any more recent animations, his photography page is regularly updated so I've included that at the bottom. The way compositions are made with powerful lighting and effective placements of shapes, I definitely think there would be a career for him in cinematography. The links at the bottom of this blog.

http://www.pixelnitrate.com/
https://plus.google.com/photos/+JoaquinBaldwin/albums/5630099283377172417