Catch Yourself On from paul madden on Vimeo. CREDITS
Director, animator, compositor - Paul Madden Voices - Alan Cooke |
Catch Yourself On
IADT HDip Animation graduate film (1998) This was my graduate film at IADT, a short animated film about the 'troubles' in northern ireland. It is a snapshot of two families experiences, focussing on the father son relationship and how bigotry can be handed down as easily from one generation to the next just as traditions of song and culture can. I wanted to take an almost tabloid approach to the subject as a short film could in no way evoke the complexities of a way of life in Northern Ireland that I have never personally experienced. Newspapers would often try to escalate tensions around marching season by showcasing photos of Orangemen with young children barely able to work clad in full regalia, or Republican boys in sunglasses and bandanas across their face barely able to manage the tricolour weighing them down let alone keep time in march. The wanted my film to show the tension and be evocative and provocative yet personal. I didnt aim to make fun of either sides position or beliefs but through a bit of comedy I did want to highlight how children are often as in many situations of potential conflict, the victims as well as those who often turn the tide against violence either through (sadly) victimhood or by taking a stand against the status quo. I took second place for Best Irish Animation at Galway FIlm Fleadh that year, beaten only by a film made by a professional studio, which I was chuffed about. The process involved in making it was quite painstaking as computers hadnt advanced as much as my ideas had. All the character animation is 12 frames per second hand drawn animation on paper. Each frame manually scanned into photoshop then batch processed to colour and tint. Each frame of the characters then had to be paintstakingly cut out for after effects and cleaned so there wasnt too much noise when animated. I composited the characters onto hand painted and inked backgrounds I created. I sourced and prepped most of the sound effects myself from a very limited library and was lucky enough to have a very good voice over artist provide the voices for the film |