Wednesday, February 15, 2017

We all go a little mad sometimes




A strange animation. This was put together from a half-dozen still pictures gleaned from Psycho, the famous parlour scene in which Norman eerily proclaims, "We all go a little mad sometimes." As you can see, there is a frame or two missing here and there.

This was an unusual project. I tried to get as many facial expressions out of six frames as possible. Norman's kind of a strange character anyway, so watching him twitch around and go from ranty to sweet in a nanosecond is nothing new.

But it was also an eerie feeling. These are just still pictures taken from a movie from more than 50 years ago. Yet there are moments - seconds - when something seems to be happening. Some kind of movement, an integrity between the frames that creates - something. Animation fools the eye. Film itself is an illusion, a lot of still pictures that the eye or the brain kindly blurs together and interprets as motion. It's also kind of strange that the background is so similar, though the fact that it kind of seethes in and out adds a special weirdness. The pictures aren't all framed exactly the same, though they're closer than most groups of movie stills even approach. Only one of them is way out of proportion, but the expression was so good that I had to use it. It gives the whole thing a weird lurching quality that I like.

Norman seems to be yelling "stop!" - or is it "stab"? 






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