Channel Frederator Blog

Shea McFarland draws pretty pictures. As an Art School Veteran myself, I completely related all too well to his Channel Frederator Featured Film, “Cycle of Art”. It’s a tragic, yet hilarious, biting & sarcastic, yet truthful, animated commentary on the sad, sorry, state of Art today. Plus the Monkey in it is Awesome!
Shea took the time to answer a few Channel Fred Qs. Thanks Shea!

CH.Fred: 1. How did you come up with the idea for this hilarious film?
SM: Being in an art school. The animation seems less far-fetched when you’re enrolled in one, although it’s still a pretty unfair portrayal.

2. How long did it take you to animate this and what medium did you use?
I used Flash, but I kept the traditional process of drawing each frame individually. I also used After Effects for some of the blur and fade effects, and Final Cut to edit. The whole ordeal took a couple months. Though this was during a semester of college, so I’d be lying if I said I spent that entire time animating.

3. What do you do when you get stuck creatively and get a case of “Artist’s Block”?
I give myself a break and do other things. A good idea rarely comes when you’re searching for it. Tequila shots also work.

4. What was the most challenging part of this short to animate for you?
Apart from the usual time vs. quality problem, I’d say that just finishing it was the biggest challenge. There’s a point in animation, after you’ve spent weeks working on the same scene, that you start to doubt that what you’re making is actually decent or funny. You can recreate this phenomenon by repeating a good joke to yourself a hundred times. You won’t be laughing, and you’ll never want to hear that stupid joke again. Thankfully I had some outside opinions to convince me otherwise or I might have abandoned the project to do something less fulfilling, like work.

5. What are you working on currently?
I have anywhere from 5 to 8 ideas at any given time, but most of them die somewhere in preproduction. I have two short animations that I’m trying to finish this summer or sometime before I die. I also have a longer one that seems impossible to complete without a production team and an actual budget, but I’ll find a way.

6. Who are some of your influences?
Bill Watterson and Wes Anderson. If only I could be some hybrid of the two. Oh, and the hot girl from Mythbusters.

7. What do you think about the state of Fine Art, or rather, Art in general today?
It’s in the same state it’s always been in: pure unadulterated ambiguity. Art is an orgy of conflicting opinions, and to try and make sense of it all is trivial. I just tell people “I draw pretty pictures” to bypass any confusion. Is that wrong?

Channel Frederator. Yr #1 SOURCE for Cartoon News & Interviews!
Thanks for Submitting “Cycle of Art” Shea, we hope you submit many more! That goes for all of you out there too! We want Your FILMS!!!
<3,
-JX!

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What are you waiting for? All the cool kids are doing it. I have mine up on my Myspace Page now.
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Cheers!