Hey, I’m Micah Buzan, a self-taught animator and musician.
Short Bio:
Artist Statement:
The feeling I try to capture in my animation is that of the lucid dream, or the ambiguous state in between dreaming and waking.
Colors can glow, objects can morph, scenes can defy the laws of nature.
Words often fail at explaining what you see in a dream. Animation allows one to bypass language and project dreams directly onto a screen for others to see.
Longer Bio:
Some work includes animating music videos and tour visuals for bands like The Flaming Lips, Incubus, Moon Duo, and other indie groups. Some of my videos have been played on Adult Swim at weird hours.
I like to write and record music during breaks from the long hours of animating. I consider walking in the woods, daydreaming, playing video games, reading books and hanging out with friends vital to the creative process.
I’m exploring telling stories through comics, and am slowly working on an experimental animated film called “The Terror Of Babel.”
How I Got Started
I was drawing before I could talk. But that’s not saying much because I didn’t figure out how to talk until I was 3.
I’ve been fortunate to have a very supportive family. My big bro who’s 10 years older than me used to draw grotesque creepy pictures. When he was in high school I’d sneak into his back pack and snag his sketchbook. Sometimes on the other side of the page I’d try to copy his weird creatures. Instead of getting mad, he always encouraged me to keep drawing.
I was homeschooled until 7th grade, so I had a lot of free time to make comics starring myself as a superhero. When not outside playing and using my imagination with other homeschooled friends, we’d play action figures and draw Dragonball Z and Sonic The Hedgehog. I’ve tried to keep this creative spark into adulthood, tapping into that experimental energy of improvising ideas and making loose associations between things.
In 7th grade I went to a private school. There were a bunch of girls there, which I wasn’t super skilled at dealing with. I learned that talking incessantly about turtles was not an effective strategy to impress the ladies.
In 10th grade I went to public school and had a great art teacher who encouraged me to experiment with unique styles. Having long hair and drawing psychedelic stuff gave me a reputation for being a stoner, even though I don’t do drugs.
When I turned 19 I a saw a music video by Chad Vangaalen called Clinically Dead. The fact that he made the song and animated the video as a one-man-studio inspired me to give animation a try.
I started drawing on notecards and copy paper, scanning the pictures frame-by-frame. My first video was a simple chase sequence with psychedelic undertones.
What started out as a random experiment turned into an obsession, and for the next 16 months I worked on a 7-minute animation & a solo album, called Word Salad.
For the next few years, I animated a number of videos for my music, experimenting with new techniques in each video.
In 2013, when I was 23, I submitted a video to a competition for The Flaming Lips. My animated video for Look…The Sun Is Rising won. This was the first ever art-related project I got paid for, and it acted as a stepping stone for doing client work. This taught me that there could be a way to earn a living off animation that didn’t require being part of a studio system (I’ve always preferred working alone, though I’ve learned to enjoy working in small teams).
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VJ LOOPS:
In 2018 I started an online shop, and began making Animated Loops packs for creatives to use in their projects like music videos, live streams, social media posts, and VJ sets.
I’ve gotten more interested in setting up online products and shifting away from freelance work.
Other Places To Find Me: