Spreading Anarchy Through Animation
Hello Steemers! My name is Seth. I'm an animator from Toronto, Ontario hoping to spread the message of peace, freedom and voluntary interaction through my content and I'm very excited to share it with this community.
It doesn't look like there is any content on steemit tagged video, animation, film, or anything like that. Does that mean I'm the first filmmaker to be a part of this community? I don't know. If so, I'm excited to be here and I hope you all will be excited to see my work. If not... hey I'm still excited to be here, and I would love to connect with any other filmakers on this site. So please comment if that's you!
What I Do
...Hand drawn animation. Actual frame-by-frame, hand drawn animation. As in, I actually draw out every single frame to create motion. That sounds like a huge pain in the ass right? It is, but I love it. I love the organic look that comes from hand-drawn animation. It's something that no computer can replicate. To me, it's the tiny mistakes and imperfections that make the work human and relatable.
In the past I did most of my work pen on paper and then composited all of the images digitally, but now I am doing all of my work on the computer. Working digitally, though still incredibly time consuming has allowed me to accelerate my workflow and fine tune my work with greater ease.
Since it would be nearly impossible to make full length features without the backup of a major studio with millions of dollars and a gigantic team of artists, I'm focusing my efforts on short format storytelling - perfect for the internet.
Spreading the Message
I want to create animated shorts that are amusing, thought provoking, and most importantly spread the gospel of freedom. I'm currently in the process of animating a miniseries of super-short films that will touch on subjects like war, taxes, voting, and pretty much anything else that has to do with the crazy, messed up, false god known as "government." For now I won't get any more specific than that. But if you're a voluntaryist, this series should be right up your alley.
I don't expect to make many posts here for the next few months since I'll be focusing most of my efforts on completing my miniseries. But when the time comes, I will post all of my videos here as I release them.
Some Examples
I haven't yet published any content that propagates my philosophy, that's still to come. But here are some examples of the work I've done. This first video is an adaptation of three stories from Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children:
I have also done freelance work. Here is a music video - and my first fully digital animation - that I did for a rock band from Toronto called Most Non Heinous:
Final Words
Thank you so much for reading! I hope some of you will follow me and watch my webseries when I release it in a few months.
P.S. Here's my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYZmY-Es0n618BZp45TPtCQ
P.P.S. One of the benefits of being a part of a community is engaging with your audience. If any of you have any ideas for anarchist/voluntaryist short films, I'm all ears!
My goodness what talent. Belloc one of my favourite poets. You did a great job and now my grandkids will know exactly what is meant by my recitation when I show them your animation. Well done.
Hey Seth! Cool to have you here! I am a visual effects artist and hoping to go to Toronto soon! Guess we have some similarities.. Good to read that more and more video / animation artists are coming to this platform. I hope that we will eventually have all sorts of channels for animation / 3d / vfx.
I also really enjoy watching hand drawn animation and claymation but never really knew why until reading this - "To me, it's the tiny mistakes and imperfections that make the work human and relatable." Now I think I know why I enjoy it so much, I never thought of it this way before. Thanks for the post, and welcome to Steem fellow Ontarioan. I'll drink a Tim Hortons for you.
When I said that I was actually paraphrasing Don Hertzfeldt who is one of my all time favourite animators. If you haven't heard of him, you should look him up now. Once you've finished your Double Double of course.
You are welcome Seth!
Can't wait to read your interesting articles. Keep on volunteering and stay as creative as you are :)
Best wishes for your future!
Hi @sethlinson, I'm glad you decided to try out the site. We all have a few doubts about Steemit, but I'm reasonably sure that this platform, and others like it, are going to be the future for artists.
I and a lot of other people really like the animations from Bitbutter; I guess you're probably familiar with his work. The only problem is, there are so few. So if you make animations about why government stinks, I'm sure people will be ready to receive it.
Welcome to Steemit and thanks for sharing your cool animations!
I agree that this could be the future for artists. If this platform is sustainable it's going to be a great way for artists to get their work out there and actually get paid. It's really exciting that people can get paid for creating content without ties to any studio, direct pay-per-view or reliance on ad revenue. This could be huge.
I'm actually not familiar with Bitbutter, but I'll take this as a recommendation and look up that channel!
...
I took a quick look and I'm definitely going to follow this channel. I have seen other things like this on YouTube (though not nearly as well done or polished as what Bitbutter is doing) but I want to take my videos in another direction. I'm not going to be making informational or explainer videos. I'm more interested in storytelling. So I'll be creating short fictions that will hopefully both entertain and communicate a voluntaryist message.
Cheers!
Do you do this for money? If so... I may have a project for you
I've freelanced before. As long as your project isn't incredibly time-sensitive I'm game for some extra work (and extra money!)
But that's the thing about the way I animate... it takes a lot of time and and work, and I need to somehow find a way to schedule that work around my actual job and my classes... and then somehow squeeze living my life in there too. But hey, if you're in no rush we could make it work.
Great! We need more people doing this kind of thing. I'm going to be trying steemit too, to see how that goes. @churdtzu Thanks for the kind words and @sethlinson I look forward to seeing your stuff.
(Another animator you might want to look up: https://www.youtube.com/user/Cartanimation/featured)
It's good to see someone working to push the ideas of peace and voluntary interaction :)
Cool, hand drawn animations!!!! Good luck with your projects, will follow you & keep track.
"To me, it's the tiny mistakes and imperfections that make the work human and relatable."
Yes, and great observation, btw. I am artist too, I made a few comic books always held dream to turn them animated limited in contacts...but that changes day to day :) thanks for post and best wishes to your art projects!
Great job. I think anarchists and artists have great opportunities here on steam. You are both! :D
Yay for Anarchists and Artists!
Hey Seth, Very cool post. You're very talented and are heading in the right direction. This world needs more peace and freedom and if you art makes that happen then go for it....