MND Animations

I have been making animations and illustrations for the Wicking Institute’s health education MOOCs (massive open online courses) since 2016.

This animation is a background for a clip I completed in January 2025 and I was really pleased with how it came out. Adobe After Effects has "fake 3d" in that you can take a flat item and rotate it any way in space that you like; but it’s still flat. And you can move a "camera" in three dimensions through a space. So this is a series of flat items arranged in the most complex way I can manage, and then a camera moves through them to suggest the interior of the motor cortex of the human brain.

It’s very satisfying to work on freelance jobs like this because it is at the other end of technical and design complexity to most of my day job, which is producing signage for Woolworths and BIG W. I do love my day job, but it's technically very straightforward.

Recent animations

 

Birchip, Victoria

I have never been to Birchip, Victoria, but I have flown over it in my mind thanks to the satellites; and this is what I saw and heard.

• Watercolour paintings 70x70mm
• Animation added in Adobe AfterEffects 
• Sound elements from the incredible free archive at freesound.org 
• 405240__guyburns__small-town-5.mp3
• 649815__fran-freesound__fran_lamp_car_approaches_dirt_road.wav
• 156828__the_yura__small-tractor.wav
• 231303__metalman101__cockatoo-flyby-01.wav 
• 636863__alex_hears_things__early-morning-birds.wav 
• License: Creative Commons 0

Instagram plug

I have a big post to write about a trip to Melbourne Michael and I just made. We had a really good time although it was quite flat out. That is coming soon.

Meanwhile … I don’t know if I have plugged my Instagram on here. It’s social media and so it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but this is how I do it: it’s a photo album of things I see, occasionally things I paint, and once in a blue moon, things I animate. 

There’s no FOMO because I never go anywhere exciting; but do let me know if you think I’ve missed a good letterbox somewhere in Hobart. There’s usually no people in my photos, so it’s not a good way to catch up on what the family are doing etc. And I usually write nothing at all but I’m always happy to answer questions. Here’s my posts for May.

Boa Vista Road

This is Boa Vista Road in New Town, five minutes drive from the centre of town. 

I catch a bus up this way in my lunch hour sometimes and walk back into the city. The bushy hill is the Queens Domain. This road corkscrews up, over, down and around to the right to meet Park Street. A few metres beyond Park Street is the busy Brooker Highway. Then above that Cleary's Gates Road runs through the bush (lined with parked commuter cars). And even further up the hill is the jogging loop track.

I like doing these urban landscapes and like most artists I shuffle the cars out of the scene because they spoil it. 

I took these progress pics as I went. The red and blue one is the source for the animation below.

In the finished painting above, an old homestead snoozes in a quiet street with apparently untouched bush in the background - a total lie! I like an uncluttered landscape. But at the same time I really love the way the movement of a car across the surface of the earth can highlight the topography. 

I don't know where I am quite going with these experiments. This may just be too noisy with too much squiggle. My boss years ago said one project coming up "might suit your 'crappy style'" and I've always thought fondly of that. At least I have a style.

Marlion Pickett's spin – a work in progress

This little animation is meant to be the first of a series of memorable Grand Final moments.

Marlion Pickett is a 27 year-old Western Australian who was picked up by Richmond in the mid-season draft. He starred in the VFL grand final a week before the AFL grand final (the VFL is virtually the AFL reserves now). He was named for his first AFL game in the grand final, something that hadn't happened for 60 years.

This is a moment in the 2nd quarter. Richmond are in front of Greater Western Sydney, but the game is still in the balance. Young giant Ivan Soldo hands the ball to Pickett and he gracefully steps onto the wrong foot and executes a perfect blind turn, completely destroying Lachie Whitfield who grasps at thin air.

Watching it live I was struck by how un-flashy it was. Not a last-quarter party piece, not a young star revelling in his stardom – it was just the right move for that situation which opened up the space. Pickett did it slowly and almost apologetically. Sorry Lachie, this is not designed to make you look silly, I just need to make some space so I can deliver the ball accurately to my forwards.

And he did. A pinpoint pass off the outside of his right boot to a lead from Georgie Castagna who marked and goaled, putting Richmond out to a 28-9 lead. The Tigers went on to crush GWS by 89 points. Pickett was outstanding and was voted 3rd best afield, in a grand final, in his first game. I hope to be there at the MCG for his second, on 19th March.



Still to add: Georgie's mark and the soundtrack

Opening up old photos

I have been training a documentary film-maker over the last few weeks, showing her ways to make good use of stills in her film. She is getting these amazing pics from the State Library of Victoria archives. It's her project, not mine, so I don't want to say too much about it at this stage. And just for my own clip I have protected the identity of these fellows (pointless really as it's not recorded who they are).

Anyway – this is one of 3 examples I have made for her to use in her film trailer.

• In Photoshop I separated the foreground layers from each other and the background
• faked up all the important parts that were hidden in the original (this is the hard part)
• used AfterEffects to move the layers apart in 3D space so it's like a wafer
• then rotated that wafer so that the 3D space is visible, with layers moving across each other

It's the most fun I have had at work in ages.

Old drawings of Warwick St

I always loved this view over to Trinity Hill from up on the Glebe. I drew these in 1998 and they were part of an animation I did then, but I have just re-animated them.

Stickman scores, by Marcus

Sunshine Harvester - final animation

I finished this back in March, and have been meaning to pop it up here. It is part of a touchscreen interactive kiosk, that sits next to a harvester on display at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

Launch loop

This is a frame from a little Flash animation I did last night, for Loop de Loop. Go and have a look at it there, comment on it and rate it if you like!

Awesome Octopus Animation

A touching story of star-crossed octopi - thanks to Matt in Hamburg for the link.

What I've Been Up To

I have been knocking myself out to get this animation done. The whole thing runs for about 2:45, and it has just taken me months to get it looking like this. I never intended the farmer to be a recognisable character at all, he was just supposed to be a shadow under a big hat bouncing along. Then I was asked to humanise him a little. Now he looks like Senator Barnaby Joyce.

Delaware!

Delaware - by Dan Meth. "Its like three guys eating dinner". Warning - contains adult concepts, mild sex and drug references.

Delaware from Dan Meth on Vimeo.

Betty Boop featuring Cab Calloway

This is fantastic. Early saucy Betty Boop (wearing a garter). About 4:20 Cab Calloway (as a clown) starts dancing and singing St James Infirmary Blues. They actually filmed Cab Calloway and rotoscoped him frame by frame. He turns into a ghost, while singing. It's fairly mental.

I am on a mission to find out more about this...

Bathtub III from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Skeleton staffing

Hi there. I've been off the air for some time due to work overload and Christmas. Work is still very intense, but I find myself in a lull, waiting for content from other people.

I am working on a big educational site called DIY Documentary. It's about teaching upper secondary kids what documentaries are, the different styles and elements of documentaries, and how they are made. It's looking pretty good but really needs a lot of content quickly. Text needs to written and film clips need to be edited and compressed for the web, and voice overs need to be written, and recorded. Once the VOs are done I need to make matching animations. It has to at least look complete on January 3rd. On January 4th it will be presented at an education software show in London.

We've been asked to keep plugging away at DIY Documentary (and the other two projects that are bound for the same trade show) through the Christmas/New Year break.

The Wolf Song

I mentioned finishing this back in May or June, but never embedded it here. Now with properly mastered audio. Find out all about the band here

The Wolf Song.

The Wherever Song

Finished at long last! : The Wherever Song by The Leonard Cohen Brothers

What up

Is there anything happening at our place apart from pre-school sans-serif experiments? Yes. I have been working hard on a film clip for a proper-length tune, The Wherever Song by The Leonard Cohen Brothers. It is "finished" so there's probably only about 6 - 8 hours of tweaking left to do. I will upload it here when I work out again how to do get it looking OK on the www.

Our man Rob is finishing off the back deck with steps to the lawn and a bench running along it. Elf is putting up pictures like there's no tomorrow.

Marcus patted a shark today at the Marine Discovery Centre. He told me this morning that "words are boring - they are only good for reading". I leaped to the defence of words, pointing out that they are great for asking questions, talking to people and for persuading someone of something. He acutely pointed out that that was just what I was trying to do.