Fraser MacLean Talk

Fraser MacLean- layout and background artist who has worked on production such as “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, “Space Jam”, “Tarzan”, “Little Dorrit” and the Animo animation software package. It was absolutely an honour to be given a talk from him. The 2 hours talk went so fast because every thing he said was so inspiring and informative.

-He started from very small jobs like doing shadows on characters and this is what we young animators should not refuse to do. 

-He told us how vision works, how we receive information from pictures which relates to the layout of it.

-What is best to do in the industry:having creativity, develop skills, develop technology and tools, concentrate on certain idea as well as having some money to carry on. 

-He encouraged us to se more things during young age

-Organisation and discipline is very important in film making

- We should accept new technology: either you ride the wave or the wave rides over you.

-He also stressed the importance of sound and advised us to build animation on sound not to putting sounds at last.(This is what I am doing in Extended now, so I really feel for this point!)

I remembered this particular slice when he talked about his early school work and how materials were so limited. This did not stop him from creating and in fact I think his work is absolutely stunning.  I especially love the idea of the bottom right picture which is a drama act, using a stick to separate the space into reality and the reflection of the mirror. Replicating every objects and generate the illusion that the audience is the actor or we are seeing the reflection of the actor on stage. This technique blows my mind and it is so impactive to use in theatre! It is a shame how we are too depending on technology and trapped by the internet. As Fraser said he finds working in pencil and paper is his favourite media but many of us work digitally now so which is a shame. He showed us his sketch books which are AMAZING! and I started a life drawing sketch book after being inspired. 

He is very charming and humorous. He is also very supportive to students as well. He told us the importance to understand art history and to look at the layout of a picture in order to tell a story. How characters enter or exit the scene directly affect the story telling and the atmosphere as well as the camera angle. He showed us so many examples of his work explaining each and I learnt a lot from the talk.