Bee on flower violence: a discussion with Dale Hayward

Above: In court, the bee will claim the flower was ‘dressed sexy’.

Dale Hayward is responsible for the single most disturbing animation involving a sunflower in the history of the universe. The Flower is also a hilarious and unexpected inversion of DIY stop-motion, which tends towards towards the twee. The animator chatted with Crackle about the sexual politics of pollination, drawing naked ladies, and loving plants.

Crackle: What’s your background? How did you get into animation/stop-motion?

Dale Hayward: I went to school for classical animation in Toronto, at a place that focuses a ton on the “traditional” skills of drawing; they really enhanced my passion for drawing. when I graduated, there was no work in the city other than in Flash. Luckily I got to do a test for Cuppa Coffee [Animation] in stop-mo, [then] two Sunday afternoons later I was hired and worked there for about 5 years, animating, doing some sculpting and then directing.

Crackle: The Flower had the unique effect on me of making me feel really bad for flowers. Do sunflowers really bug you, or did this video come from some deep-seated empathy you’ve got for plant life?

DH: Heh, that’s exactly the effect we want you to have. Plants are actually one of my other passions (we live with about 70), so I guess there’s empathy there, and wanting to use them in films is a daily occurrence. When creating the puppets for [The Flower], Sylvie (my girlfriend) and I used a lot of crap that was already in our place, focusing a theme [around] the stuff we used, i.e., the bee had hard metal things (bolts, wires, clamps) and the flower had more organic-y, softer things (towels, clay, rubber).

Crackle: So I definitely never thought of pollination as a sexual-assault scenario before. Did you just happen to see an over-eager wasp, or what? How did this occur to you?

DH: Phil (the co-director) and I had come up with a ton of short film ideas, but all of them were way too ambitious or just not practical to complete with our budget, which was about $1.23. So over a coffee we broke a story down its ultimate basics: a flower, he’s singing, bee comes by and screws him in the eye, end of story. It’s really just the typical elements to all stories. [Ed: I hadn't noticed the bee-rape subtext in all stories, but hey, symbolism is a fine art.]

Crackle: What was the overall aesthetic you were shooting for in The Flower? I got Old-Disney-meets-Hostel.

DH: Our love for old film/music/animation and then drench it in ridiculous sauce.

Crackle: Can you talk about the technical aspects of making The Flower? How did you achieve the old-timey, bad-film-stock look?

DH: [It was] shot table-top with my Nikon d80, Imac with Framethief, fixed up and then timed with After Effects. [There were a] couple days of boarding/ideas/recording, about a week to make the puppets, [a] couple more days for setup, [then we] shot it over two and a half days. Then [there was] about another week of added stuff and rendering, in total about 3 weeks give or take.

The overall grain was a few colour tweaks and mainly a self-made series of about 30 grainy frames, both black and white in Photoshop. I cant stand presets – [they're] like poop in your mug.

Crackle: So, I noticed on your blog that your warm-up drawings are often naked chicas. Is drawing the female form good for the creative, ahem, juices?

DH: Definitely; the only thing harder than drawing women is drawing a woman with another woman, so why not challenge [yourself] and have a good excuse for staring at the much fairer sex?

Crackle: What projects are you working on now?

DH: I’m really working on this thing called relaxing, but I seem to suck at it. I just finished making a music video with Sylvie called “Auburn fades away” for Li’ Andy. I’m at the national film board of Canada again animating a sequence with a friend of mine for a film celebrating Québec’s 400 year anniversary. The film is all in stereoscopic vision! Which is a big smart sounding word for imax type 3d. It’s really weird and crazy dealing with the third dimension; it doesn’t let you cheat as much. I’m also very close to starting the next installment of pleasurable pain with the flower. For this one I ordered an extra ten bottles of awkward giggles. Higher budget this time.

Check out Dale Hayward’s blog.

Animal Planet: Whimsical Edition

Everyone loves Planet Earth, with good reason, but there is one glaring omission in the hard work of the good people at the Discovery Channel. Here then, a documentary-style examination of the habitat, territorial conflicts, predators, and feeding habits of the Unicorn, or the neon horse at it’s known to some cultures.

Plenty more from This World creator fishbot at deviantART.

Dart-throwing monsters are resistant to change

The lesson of Darts in the Snow: don’t ruffle feathers. Or, don’t interrupt a chain of monsters from throwing darts into each other’s butts. Both pretty universal messages.

Creator Alexei Kharitidi’s bio, from Little Animation Inc.:

Oscar nominee Alexei Kharitidi graduated from the Advanced Institute For Scriptwriters & Film Directors in Moscow, the very best school for filmmakers in Russia. His short animated films have participated in and won prizes at many prestigious festivals including Cannes, Annecy, Hiroshima, Ottawa, and his film “Gagarin” won the GOLDEN PALM in short film competition in Cannes in 1995 and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1996.

Carnage in candyland

As saccharine as a pack of Skittles, Goobees is also bitingly morbid – a sweet sucker with an Atomic sour center. It recognizes that the Pixar look can be hilariously played against itself given a dark tone. And so, a war among the sweets:

The story behind Goobees:

“Goobees” was created by four graduate students in the Texas A&M Viz Lab, over the course of a year and a half. All four students share directing and producing credits.

For more on the Goobees team, check out the website.

Radiohead: “we will judge your cartoon”

Everyone always kind of assumed Radiohead loved cartoons because of the epic, weird, hilarious, and brilliant animated video for their 1997 song Paranoid Android. Now the proof: in conjunction with Aniboom, the living legends are judging an online animation contest. Caught you, Radiohead!