about

Erráns Alba created by Michael J Dowswell

Website Blog [here]

Growing up in Edinburgh and then Dumfries, Scotland, Dowswell had a consuming interest in drawing and films from a very
early age.

Dowswell grew up around a lot of computers, his Father in 1985 bought a BBC Micro and in the early 90s formed a computing
buisness using Commodore International's Amigas and a PC. A 3d animator who was part of the buisness for a while
used the software "Imagine" created by Impulse.Inc

Dowswell dabbled with the software but was really too young to understand it very well.

1998

In 1998 his father bought a MiniDV camcorder, which led to Dowswell making little films that were basically like scenes out of
a film. He made Little special effects shots and also built a miniature set in a spare room in the cellar.

He received two merits for video directing/editing at art college whilst doing his HND photography in 1998 and 99.

He decides next to do a degree, Multimedia Design and Digital Animation in Carlisle.

2000

During the degree course in 2001, Dowswell took part in a film festival challenge in Kirkcudbright Scotland, and directed a short film,
where three of his friends did all the acting. A short film had to be written, shot and edited all in twenty four hours.
Dowswell worked with Donald Cumming who had starred in a short film before. A BBC ducumentary film crew also
tagged along for a bit filming Dowswell's team. They even appeared at Dowswells private house to interview Dowswell's team.

Netscape

Donald Cumming "The Box"

“We had a wonderful time making this film, and seeing everybody else's film,
I’ll never forget it. It's also, always amazing to see how each individual creates
something completely different"

2002

The degree course at Carlisle Institute of the Arts was really great because it covered many different subjects which, while it kept the
course interesting, narrowed down Michael’s interests further and further exposed his true love for film making in year three, the
final year when he created his first animation short film “Rocket-Man” using Cinema 4D by Maxon.

Netscape

Rocket-Man 2003

This had a major effect on Dowswell because it was the first time he seemed to be suddenly free as it were, finally getting to do anything he wanted
with the camera, dolly, crane, anything, and suddenly he was using classical music to shape the edit (somthing he'd not done before but instantly fell
in love with doing).

2003

He came out of college very excited and keen to do more animation, and continued his work with the creation of Erráns Ruber,
Rocket-Man 2: part 1, “The Making of Erráns Ruber” and Erráns Caeruleus during 2003 to 2005. All short science fiction
animations set to classical music and all made with no budget at what was then named Silent Studios at his home.

2005-2006

The next discovery for Michael was a developing interest for documentary film making. He would take video footage of various
things: the deep snow from 2006’s winter in the Scottish village where he lives, a hydro mechanical cow made by a friend of his
father’s, a year’s worth of footage of two ginger kittens growing up to become small adult cats, and an aquarium in America. He
found himself editing this footage together each time round, and gradually finding the right classical music to go with each film.
During this period he created four short, silent black and white films: Into Unknown Terrain, The Hydro Mechanical Cow, From
Behind Glass and Innocence of Youth.

In mid 2005 the concept for Errans Alba is concieved and Dowswell begins work on it.

A composer who Dowswell had never met, appeared out of the blue and wanted to work on the infamous Alba and eventually
this fell apart because Dowswell was not happy with the composer not getting paid to work for him.

"in this situation, and i'll add, a horrible situation, you cant really feel justified in your
actions, it just doesn't feel right. You can't ask somebody to re do somthing one hundred and
fifty times with no pay. It's also very difficult working for me as I tend to change my mind a
lot and re do things a lot, having to do all jobs on my films is both great and not so great...
it’s a burden, but at the same time I do love to control all elements on the film. I WILL add
here though that when we analyse the situation up close here, I’m not really in control as I
badly need a technical director and a character animator."

At this point, Dowswell did not animate for pretty much 90% of 2006, he had reached burn out.

In late 2006, the animation project that was started in mid 2005 was put back into action, Erráns Alba. The project grew in run
time length. What was estimated to be a five minute piece turned into a fifteen minute piece. It was the first animation
Dowswell was directing that was going to have a original score and so he was freer to keep on going with ideas as opposed to
limiting himself with a set piece of classical music.

2007

The project "Erráns Alba" was spotted by Mark Geddes (South West Scotland Screen Commissioner) who was intrigued by the
trailer he saw online and wanted the finished film to be screened alongside five other short films made in the region. This added
considerable unforeseen pressure as Dowswell was now working to a deadline in circumstances that were new to him.

“it's good to have a deadline yes...but, it's bad to have a deadline if the work far
exceeds what is physically possible in the time that you have, but, the thing is, these
experimental projects of mine quite often go on for years, there's nobody to blame but
myself for this."

Composing the music himself was too much for Dowswell, his father offered to compose and actually went ahead and
composed some music for the opening scenes before any agreement was made. Michael was impressed and it was agreed
his father would write a orriginal score.

Dowswell was not sure on the length of Erráns Alba as he kept getting more ideas that he liked and wanted to see in the film.
Stress and fatigue ended up putting the whole thing to a near complete stop and it was decided that it could be taken to nine
minutes and have a cliff hanger ending with a To Be Continued sign put up, even though a lot more animation had been made
the sound and score had not.

Nine minutes of Alba were shown at the Robert Burns Centre, Dumfries at the end of April 2007.

Dowswell at this point had a short rest away from it but then infamously jumped project to start up work on “Servus”. He
was keen to put other ideas into motion as they were in his head and needing to be done.

DECEMBER 19th

Four minutes of Servus had now been completed. Dowswell was very happy with what had been done.The choice of
music fitted very well.

Netscape

Servus 2007

DECEMBER 20th

Dowswell suddenly has another surprise happy accident happen when he experiments and creates a new character idea
for another new animation. In the last half of December 2007 Dowswell starts work (unexpectedly) on his 7th animation.

2008

Dowswell has forty seconds of his new untitled animation complete on January 1st.

Studio Tacitus © 2007. All rights reserved. All work © 2001-2007 Michael J Dowswell
michael_dowswell@hotmail.com