This is the second part of Ray’s fascinating piece on internet animation: Put a Banana in Your Ear!
Twice the Laughs for Half the Work
Animation has seemingly transcended its own medium and pieces like Charlie provide a unique alternative to something that was typically the domain of years of work and dedication. This simple film has as much impact and power as its hand-animated predecessors that used to feature as staples in any cinema-going experience and now they are freely and publically available online, providing an instant and gratifying source of consumable entertainment.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that a minimal amount of work is put in to internet-based animation though. Look at something like Baman and Piderman, something that originally started as a college project themed around laziness and manifested into massive popularity by the internet. So much so that it’s become its own miniature series with millions of fans.
Don’t you just wanna give Piderman a hug?
It’s pure silliness, but lovingly animated with a weight and substance that lends so much gravity to such simplistic copyright infringements.
Humour seems to be utterly prevalent, but it doesn’t mean that arbitrary jokes are the only means of getting exposure – people do still enjoy quality animation as well, and few independently home-made animations get to the level of the classic Flash-animated Brackenwood/Waterlollies series.
Peep!
Skilfully animated by a single person, the series showed the scope of what a little hard work and a lot of passion can achieve and achieved a large amount of fame and accolades on newgrounds.com, one of the best-known animation repository sites of its kind.
This kind of platform would never have even been feasible 20 years ago, but now aspiring animators have the chance to expose the world to their art and even get noticed by the big studios. Yes, not all of the animation put on the net is good… In fact, 90% of it is probably pure rubbish, but there is a true goldmine of work out there if you know where to look.
Some people may argue that this ubiquitous platform is debasing the true art of animation, allowing any rank amateur to expose their work to the world, but I would digress by saying that instead, it’s growing an industry that was slowly fading into obscurity. Passion and support like this is difficult to attain, but the open world of the net allows people to share and learn and develop. This sense of community is especially what is needed here on the shores of South Africa if we ever want to have an animation industry comparable to Korea or Japan or even India.
This certainly will not be the last time I write on this matter because I’ve barely even scratched the surface, but I thought this would be a fitting intro to my new column here on In the Kan. I’d love to here your thoughts on the matter and please feel free to share any other awesome animation videos!
One last thing I’d like to leave you with though is this wondrous piece of animation that keeps me coming back day after day:
About the author:
Ray is a native Jo’burger that rebelled against his Southern heritage and took to reading comic books instead of pumping iron – a passion that took him all the way through to getting his Master’s Degree in Animation. He’ll take you on a spandex-clad journey into the glorious realm of the camp and the absurd, and then past his bedroom into the world of comic-based animation and animation in general.
Ray writes a weekly column on In the Kan titled “From Pages to Pixels” where he talks everything animation and comics. You can find Ray’s awesome artwork HERE
Joel’s horrendous design skills – contact us if you can do better!
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