Animators unearthed

Just took some time out - had a bath and took the book with me: animators unearthed by Chris Robinson. I already knew of a few of the animators highlighted in this book, for example: Chris Landreth - I adore his film Ryan (2004), its one of my favourite 3D animations, also Michaela Pavlatova, I just love Reci , Reci, Reci (1991), PES, Joanna Priestley, Chris Shepherd, Konstantin Bronzit, Jib Jab and Joanna Quinn; but there are a few animators in this book that I had not heard of and one of these were: Theodore Ushev, so I had a little read about him and immediately checked out one of his films as soon as I got out of the bath - Tower Bawher (2005). You can see the influence of Bauhaus, Constructivism and El Lissitzky. In the book it says he was influenced by constructivist artists like Dziga Vertov and the Stenberg Brothers. It is pretty powerful and synchs so well with the dynamic soundtrack Time Forward! by Russian composer Georgy Sviridov. It brought to mind an idea that I had for the Red chases Blue animation that I did in Year 1 of the MA. I had the idea of the red circle chasing the Blue triangle, taking inspiration from Lissitzky's Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge. I didn't go with my original idea and did an animation about a baby dressed in red, chasing a blue balloon. Watching this film makes me see the great potential in abstract animation and makes me think that one day I should return to the more abstract idea that I had.


I am going to search for Ushev's earlier animations, as Vertical looks interesting too, but in his website, he states that: 'There are some experiments before. But I consider Tower Bawher my first professional film'. So it seems he is more proud of Tower Bawher. His Father was an abstract painter, and it mentions in the book that his main objective after creating it was to go home to show his Father.

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge - El Lissitzky