A monk seeking enlightenment winds up with more than he bargained
for. Unwittingly cast as Ice against his inner Fire, the monk
is caught up in a spectacular dance... in a fight for his
life.
Kenneth Anderson made this film as his graduate thesis in
film school. It's nice to see hand-drawn animation, even quick
and gestural as this is. And there are some really nice pieces
of action here.
Visually, it's pretty well done for a student film, but as
a piece of storytelling, it has more than enough to grab onto.
The struggle of all men against their own demons, and the
calm that comes from surrender to the will of the universe
are things the film asks the audience to contemplate. Those
are the things that will remain with you long after the film
is over. An ending that is not wrapped up in a tidy bow is
an unexpected pleasure from this graduate thesis film, and
the film is richer for the questions it leaves in the minds
of the audience.
Filmmaker Kenneth Anderson took some time out to chat with
us about his film. His comments are below.
"'Transcendance'
is my honours year film, which I made between September 2004
and May 2005. It is a study of martial arts, and the human
body in motion set against an ideology of the self and inner
peace.
I have a long term interest in animation, and decided to study
it at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee (where
I made this film). I also have a long term interest in martial
arts, having trained in Capoeira, Silat, Kali/Escrima and
Muay Thai boxing. I did the whole project myself, except for
the music (thanks to Neil Pollock) and had some additional
help on the frame colouring (thanks to James Law, Mat Kelman
and San Hung Yu)."
"I
have long wanted to animate some kind of martial arts,
to show the movement of the human body under pressure
of its environment."
- Kenneth Anderson
"‘Transcendance’,
as it stands now, took roughly 8 months to make, from the
initial idea through to the final compositing. It developed
mainly from my interest in martial arts, both the physical
aspects, and the spiritual. I have long wanted to animate
some kind of martial arts, to show the movement of the human
body under pressure of its environment.
The
ideology behind ‘Transcendance’ was an after thought.
The martial arts came first, the reason second. The idea
isn’t a new one – it draws from Buddhism, Taoism, Yin
yang theory etc. It is no surprise that these schools
of thought are closely related to (Asian) martial arts.
The concept of a monk fighting his inner demon may not
be new, but it was a suitable vehicle to justify animating
martial arts, and give meaning to their portrayal. Hopefully
I portrayed them in an original way, while putting a new
slant on the idea underlying the film.
Time
restraints ultimately defined the final look of ‘Transcendance’.
I resolved early on in the production to bypass the clean
up stage, and leave my drawings rough and sketchy. Not
only did this save a lot of time, I feel it benefited
the final film. I have always preferred rough linetests
to final cleaned up animation – they always seem more
energetic. As such, this was an advantage when animating
martial arts. The fast pace of the film meant I could
get away with rougher drawings, saving more time, while
not loosing impact. Ideally however, the film would have
been less rushed with more attention to detail.
While
the loose and sketchy approach saved a lot of time, it
threw up some problems. I was now unable to use programs
such as toonz to colour the drawings – my drawings were
full of broken lines, and the colours couldn’t just be
filled, but had to be painted using photoshop and a tablet.
In the end however, this was not a problem. Toonz would
have been too limiting, and I would have been unable to
achieve the fiery effect of the monks’ demon using it
or a similar program. Every frame and the backgrounds
in the film were coloured using photoshop. I did about
90% of the colouring with additional help from 3 classmates.
It was a long painful process, but I couldn’t have done
it any other way. One disadvantage about it, was the fact
the rough edges of the characters become obscured as only
some are made visible by the colour underneath. This was
something I decided to live with."
