Thursday, February 19, 2009

Masks



A few days ago Patrick Smith, indy NYC animator extraordinaire, put this quick teaser on YouTube for his new film project, Masks. I like the idea behind this- Patrick visually following the lead laid down by a challenging audio track put together by Karl von Kries. The abstract audio would be challenging to anybody, but Smith looks to be up to it. Patrick Smith's stuff is very solid, his films always a visual treat and his passion contagious. I like that his films are kinda raw- not raw as in gory or in poor taste, but raw in the sense that there's not a lot of emotional space between Smith and his animation. Any perceptive person can see that the stuff on the screen comes from a place that's not very far from the man's heart. His film Handshake (below) is one such result.


Check out his blog, his Flickr set, his Blend Films site and look for more of his films on the tube of you's.

3 comments:

sunny kharbanda said...

What a coincidence.. I spent quite a bit of time looking at Patrick's work earlier today. While watching his short film "Puppet", I thought about some things we went over in APT#7, specifically about rhythm and animating to music.

The animation in "Puppet" is married nicely to the classical music track. The music itself is nice and dramatic, but it's matched in intensity by his animation, so they work well together. He's also using the beat well -- I noticed that he uses smaller beats to his advantage, making his timing for smaller actions look organic, and concealing the fact that he's following a beat.

That's what I felt intuitively, anyway; I should step frame through the animation to verify it.

I agree totally that his work has a raw, visceral quality. He does come across as a very passionate person and animator.

Erik Westlund said...

Great post Keith. Pat Smith's work has been strong from the beginning and seems to improve with every film. I had the good fortune of very briefly making his acquaintance while attending the Savannah Film Festival when Handshake was screening there a few years back. The impression I gained was that he is a no B.S. type of person. 'Authentic' or 'Real' are a words that jump to mind.

Anonymous said...

A greta take on Brer Rabbit's Tar baby scene from Song of the South.
Pat Smith has a really strong line and great manipulation of three demential mass.