Ronald Fleischer


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SISYPHUS ROCKS IT!

 
This animated short is a humorous take on Greek mythology’s Sisyphus, a king who cheated death twice. Sisyphus was punished for this by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, repeating this task for eternity. In a cruel twist, Sisyphus learns the dangers of celebrating too soon… too late.  
 
 
STATEMENT:
 
This piece continues my evolution as a traditional digital animator. All the drawings and animation were created entirely on a computer forgoing the nearly obsolete use of paper and pencil. I eased into the transition from traditional hand-drawn analog animation to hand-drawn digital animation by way of my independent shorts, learning the process along the way and subsequently translating it into our curriculum. Because I practice what I teach I have become much more proficient in cleaning up my own drawings – the creation of all the final linework for the animation, something I wasn’t accomplished enough to attempt in the past.  
 
This film also gave me the opportunity to attempt 2D character rigging, a technique that is often used in modern traditional animation. The concept behind it is like rigging a 3D character – one simply attaches parts of the characters drawing to each other just like in the old song, “Them Bones” (the head bone’s connected to the neck bone. The neck bone’s connected to the…). This is an economic way of creating animation because it reduces the number of drawings needed. Instead, parts of the body are moved independently but still stay together as a group. This can be seen in the last shot of the film in Prometheus’ running cycle. The only drawings that change are his legs. The rest of his body are represented by single drawings that move independently (i.e. his arms, head, hair). This is a technique that I experimented with to assist me in creating a new course/curriculum for 2D Character Rigging.