Hothouse 7: This Sh** is Bananas

The following is a guest post by Candace Couse.

Animating is sooo different than making objects and art installations. I’m used to creating something as I go along; based on the results I am getting so far. Animating is like writing a book about a painting, and then painting it, and then staring at it until it turns into mushy bananas. When I make an art object I ask myself questions like: did this work out? Do I like this?

When I animate I ask myself questions like: Do you remember if this looked good before it became mushy bananas? Do you know what looks good? Why is this a banana?

Today I decided that my animation was horrible and everyone would laugh at me. Naturally I consulted an animator friend. Of course I didn’t send him any demos, as this would open the possibility of hearing that my film was a banana, and in my fragile state I knew I would collapse upon receiving this news.

I opted to open with, “My film sucks.” To which he replied that he couldn’t believe that we were making a film on such a short timeline and that he could not make his 2.5D short film in said time. At this point I asked if he meant 3D. He did not.  I told him to shut up, and that there was no such thing as 2.5D, and that he was a jerk. He countered with, “Yes, it was what I used in the Metric music video.”

Feeling more excluded from the animators lunch table than when I began, I called him a “Horrangingeburger,” and then apologised, stating that, “I thought we were making up words.” Then, in a characteristic angry outburst I told him to grow a moustache. He said,

I’m a Toronto computer animator, more dorky than anything, you are a cool hipster Montreal animator. Now who’s the one with the moustache?

Pffft! Obviously I’m too busy gluing things together and selling them on Etsy to grow a moustache.

At least I could be, if I was done my documentary about bananas.

Oh, and also…evidently there is such thing as 2.5D, I googled it.