Shane Acker, David Donar, Tim Davis
Shane came to Clemson to do workshops and lectures for our Digital Production Arts program. Here he is pictured with me and my esteemed colleague Dr. Tim Davis. Shane’s a great speaker and even better mentor to our students. It was a great pleasure to have him around for the week and we look forward to working with him again. Thanks Shane!
Here’s a clip of the film. The full version is doing the film festival rounds so I won’t be posting it until next year. I have DVD’s if anyone is interested.
My film, Appalachian Dreams will be screened Saturday Nov 14th, 6:30pm at the Fine Arts Theatre in downtown Asheville.
This is a real nice fest as there are some great films, workshops, and Asheville is a cultural mecca in one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Appalachian Dreams had it’s premiere at the Grand Rapids Film Festival in August.
I’m please to note that it is also in official competition in the Asheville Film Festival and the Short Toronto Independent Film Festival. Details to follow!
This is one of many stories my late grandfather told me in the winter of 2005. I’ll post all of them at one point. He’s not the most “sensitive” or “politically correct” but I still love him and his sense of story. He has a few.
“Appalachian Dreams” is a celebration of upstate South Carolinian heritage and mountain culture. I received a grant from the South Carolina Film Commission to produce this film. Bill Nichols, the “founder” of contemporary clog dancing, is the star of the film. Bill has taught just about every contemporary clog instructor in the country. The film was shot on location at the Hagood Mill in Pickens, SC. The film is a combination of live action which was produced by the Fine Arts High School at Wade Hampton in Greenville, SC and 3D digital animation by Digital Production Arts grad students in Clemson University.
I wanted to combine the arts and crafts of southern Appalachian culture and merge it with the state of the art digital 3D animation technology to create an entertaining film that could spur interest in the art form of clogging and the cultural history of the Hagood mill. The music is an arrangement done by Ed Bolt the site manager of the mill who performs with a group of musicians an original form of of music called “Old Time Music” that predates Bluegrass. I hope to screen the film at festivals through out North America and the world and eventually on television like ETV and North Carolina Public TV and clogging festivals and workshops to generate interest and motivate kids to take up this wonderful dance.
An old clogger performs a traditional southern Appalachian clog dance to mountain music from a traditional bluegrass band. After a full evening of vigorous dance, the exhausted clogger returns to his cabin and removes his shoes before heading upstairs to bed. Once the old man retires upstairs, the clock ticks to a rhythm that is echoed with the wooden toy band on the mantel. The shoes starts to tap to the rhythm and soon the toy band breaks into a lively up beat tempo bluegrass jam. This causes the shoes to break into a lively jig that ultimately destroys the entire cabin awakening the old man and to his astonishment finds something else in those shoes!
Not sure that I entirely believe this will work but it’s worth seeing…
My latest animation film is based on the art quilts of two extraordinary quilters, Dixie Haywood and Dottie Moore. I met the artists while attending a gallery opening at the South Carolina Botanical Gardens. This beautiful place housed their quilts and I find inspiration every time I visit. I was very excited about working with Dixie and Dottie, they were so receptive in allowing me to work with their quilts in a digital realm. I was attracted to using a traditional medium such as quilt fabric but in a digital twist.
I used Photoshop to tear apart their quilts and reassmbled them to work with animation. I found myself making virtual patterns and colors with nothing but a mouse and a wacom digital tablet. But don’t be FOOLED, it was tedious work! The computer cannot read minds and so I had to go in sometimes, stitch by stitch to faithfully recreate the illusion of fabric. After such work, I have such great respect for quilters as they apply their crafts in the real physical world.
Dixie and Dottie both take traditional quilting and break the rules subtly and abruptly. They refer to themselves not necessarily as quilters but quilt craftpersons, an interesting coinage. The music is from very talented and established banjo player, Charles Wood, who has performed with Earl Scruggs and Steve Martin on the Late Show with David Letterman. Taking all these great South Carolinians and combining them into a one complete project is what film making and animation is all about. You take the best of ALL medium and I was fortunate enough to work with these great artists. Normally my subject material is all in my head, but there is some kind of liberation when you adapt from others. It’s a huge learning process that I constantly crave. Even though I am an educator by trade, I cannot exist in this world without constantly pursuing my own learning. It drives and feeds me.
The film is currently being submitted to various festivals and I plan on posting a snippet on youtube very soon, so stay tuned!
This music video established MTV as an innovative and radically new venue to showcase music. Heck, they even broadcast animation in the heyday including my stuff on cartoon sushi! Unfortunately, innovation cannot sustain itself and now MTV is just another vehicle for mainstream commercial music industry garbage. But thank god for youtube as you can find all the obscure videos to your hearts content.
This project was initially part of my Animated Appalachian Short Stories series. I was fortunate enough to have the backing of Clemson and the South Carolina Film Commission.
http://fx.clemson.edu/appalachiandreams/2008/09/story-30.html
Interesting NY Times article
Sad state of affairs when Warner Bros. has to screw up classic characters to squeeze out every last penny. Who cares about straw berrie short cake…but leave Bugs alone. Can’t you just be happy with making $ from reruns?
