Welcome to the 2010 Baker Artist Awards.

About this Project

Enought to Drive you Mad is a hand-drawn animation based on a still from Au Hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson. In the middle of an uncharacteristicly melodramatic monologue, Marie, in a characterstically emotionless delivery utters this phrase which gives my animation it's title. Rather than take Bresson's ideas within the narrative as a starting point, I took one still and had character ideas from working on I Choose Darkness. Marie wanted to have some fun after all that heaviness, so I just let her have it. Finished as a 16 mm film loop, projected in totally darkened room. Sound by Snacks, Tom Boram and Dan Breen, 3.5 minutes looped, 2009

About this Project

I choose darkness (2009) is a 6 minute puppet animation based loosely on Robert Bresson's film Au Hasard Balthazar. Bresson was known for using actors as "models" stripping them of emotion, allowing no interpretation in their performance. I use models for similar reasons, albeit real objects. The interpretation (emotional and narrative) gets thrown back upon the viewer because the objects in my films can't show you how to feel. They are indeed objects but occupy a transitional space, through their movements where they fill a need to communicate my subject. I've worked with animation for over 10 years and this was the first film made directly addressing these ideas I've had and formed over time. Bresson's film implies a redemption through suffering which I reject. This is a loop where the main character, Marie, is stuck in the present tense, stuck in her suffering. For her, there is no redemption. Music by Winston Rice and Duke Ellington. Sound design by Media Noise.

About this Project

This is a short experimental video I did taking as a starting point a line from the Edgar Allen Poe story, A Tell Tale Heart. I took the idea of the blue eye as an infectious irritant.

About this Project

La Nuit (2007) is a 6 minute, looped, stop motion animation. Working from the memory of particular scenes from Jean Vigo's masterpiece from 1934 "L'Atalante," La Nuit is a dark portrait of a new married couple, estranged. Underwater visions, cartoon music and much rubbing are features of this slow, strange animation. A series of related drawings was done using certain film stills as a starting point.

About this Project

Le Matin is a 4.5 minute drawing animation, shot on 16mm film. Like La Nuit, it is based on Jean Vigo's film, L'Atalante. Unlike most cell animation which only redraws what is moving, I redrew every frame, 12 drawings per second. This film chronicles the very beginning actions of L'Atalante, after Jean and Juliette are married and they walk through the village and outer fields to Jean's barge, where they will live. The ending of Le Matin is my invention which summaraizes the film's subject of the couple's relationship in one fantastic scene. Music by Winston Rice and sound design by Media Noise.