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Rocket-Man (2003)


Animation by Michael J Dowswell
music by Wilhelm Richard Wagner and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Aspect Ratio: 1.25:1

CLIP:




STILLS:





DIRECTORS STATEMENT
My first animated short film. This is where my filmmaking took a turn into a more completed state of start middle and end
it was made for or on my degree at Cumbria Institute of the Arts.

Once I had accidently, or, out of frustration, made my robot fly (in software I hated) (whilst doing referral work in the
summertime) (very odd) I had to come up with where he was going to fly to next.

The reason I say its very odd, is because one thing seems to lead to the next thing...which I find constantly fascinating.

It seemed right that it be a road crash with a high bridge and car pearched over the edge (which isn't very orriginal, but then
the whole idea isn't...but, the strange thing is, that you just do these things without question because they seem right
at the time, (there is no questioning it) I just hope that you enjoy it for what it is.

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


I think that it's definitely subconsciously inspired by the Fritz Langs Metropolis (which I’ve only ever seen about
forty minutes of, once). But yeah, that film and any black and white film that tries to do the same kind of thing.
To me black and white just feels very clean and appealing, I cant really desribe it so much, other than that. And using a
a lot of cubes also felt right, almost like, well, if the computer can draw a perfect cube, then why not take advantage of that?
that may sound silly, but it gives you a lot of perspective for composition, and also fairly quick scale can be achieved.
I just love lighting it too with all those flat surfaces.

and of course, the 1991 film "The Rocketeer" was somthing I really loved as a kid. In fact I can remember getting really
very excited about it being premiered on the TV.

TRIVIA
-The film started one day when Dowswell was doing referral work for college in the summertime
he was struggling to do a walk cycle and found himself making the robot fly instead.

-Looking at the film in 2008, Dowswell was not happy at the large amount of technical problems
he was seeing with the film. He started to work on a new version.

-Made with no money





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