Chris Harding, more animation please
Recently, a friend of mine came across the blog of animator Chris Harding. After a few minutes of reading the blog out-loud (in a less-than subtle way of catching my attention) my friend aroused my interests and I began to read the blog, too (sometimes out-loud as well).
Chris Harding is quite an inspirational animator. His approach to animation as the vehicle of an idea yields work with thought and direction- rather than being some aggregation of punchlines and plot twists. Here is one of his films:
View Harding’s animated short: Learn Self Defense
I’d also like to share some passages of his that I found particularly insightful:
The only way for me to motivate myself is with ideas. If I’m in love with an idea enough, and I can’t communicate that idea by any other method I feel the strong need to animate it. -Cold Hard Flash Interview
What are animated shorts good for in the world? Maybe they make someone laugh for a couple seconds, but so does an ill-timed fart. I hope in the long run there’s a little bit more value to this work than a puff of gas and noise. If not, we should all go be paramedics and put ourselves to better use. - Present Magazine
If you know me you’ve probably heard me quote this from Bertolt Brecht:
Organization
Mr. K. once said: ‘The thinking man does not use one light too many, one piece of bread too many, one idea too many.’
And here is Chris Harding’s take:
The whole goal with short films is to distill an idea down to its essence without being simplistic. So you keep honing until you’re left with all the necessary information, and not one speck more.
So as you see, I was right all along… ;) Well, at least another person out there sees things similarly. I’m thankful that Chris maintains a blog and I hope to see more work from him in the future.
If you want an inspired laugh, read Chris Harding’s About page. It is quite fun (and delightfully satirical).
-Tom