This is an animation of Für Elise by Beethoven. I was inspired by direct filmmaking techniques as done in the 1930’s by Norman McLaren and Len Lye.
Direct filmmaking, also known as cameraless animation, is where the artist works directly on film stock. Although some drawn-on-film animation contains narrative, it tends to be highly abstract in nature, focusing on syncing up shapes and motion to the soundtrack.
I animated this as an experiment for future music videos. I’ve found that abstract animation is way faster to produce than full character animation. It’s still time-consuming, just less so than the other stuff.
I used TVPaint to animate the frames, mostly using a digital paint brush to try to replicate a hand-made look. I photographed some acrylic backgrounds, and filmed live footage to combine with the animation.
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