Stylistically, Shane describes his work
as “a balance of the attitude of kitschy East
Coast beach culture combined with the
psychedelic themes and lots of process based
experimentation.” He argues that honing
down on a particular emotion or feeling which
a client may want to achieve is easier with
animation. “A lot of my best commissioned
work is where I’m meant to plug into a larger
project and identify moments which can be
punctuated with animation in ways that add
nicely to the story. Like hot-gluing extra layers
on to the onion that tell extra jokes,” Shane
explains. “I’m really interested in stuff that
loops, and the process of filling in all moments
until visuals flow seamlessly, which is more, by
coincidence, reflective in psychedelic art and
animation. There’s certainly a balance to strike
with the psychedelic aspects of my style.”
Li says this emerging trend for “really
trippy things” is opening up doors for more
experimental content, too. “Drawing from the
psychedelic animation styles of the 60s/70s as
well as a modern take on a psychedelic style,
such as the title sequence for Rage, an Aussie
music video programme.”COMPUTER GRAPHICS AND 3D
Kitty has also seen an increasing amount of
briefs for “unorthodox” 3D character work.
“I think there used to be a sort of lazy assumption
that 3D either meant Pixar or motion graphics.
But the animation community is so much
richer and more vibrant than that, and it feels
like that’s been cutting through in the past
few years,” she says. “People have always come
to us for design-led character briefs (we love
limited colour palettes and wild figurative
proportions), but where previously those
briefs tended to be limited to 2D executions,
we now see it for 3D briefs too, which is very
exciting. The existing laws of physics don’t
need to apply to animated worlds, and that’s
an infinitely fascinating thing.”
A trend for dynamic movement and fast-
moving animation that uses the whole three-
dimensional space within the frame has also
emerged – perfect for sports subjects, adds
Sue. “With the Olympics being held in Japan,
there’s also a fair amount of manga styles
coming through too, but always with clever
transitions and dynamic movement,” she
adds. She also points out that vector graphic“ANIMATION
VISUALLY
EXPLAINS A LOT
OF FEELINGS THAT
CAN’T REALLY
BE EXPLAINED
OTHERWISE”
SHANE BEAMTOP
Shane Beam worked
with Good Brother to
animate segments on
the four-episode
Netflix series A Little
Bit Pregnant.
ABOVE AND RIGHT
Stills from personal
film So Here We Are,
directed by Shane.