stop motion shorts

A few shorts and homework exercises I did in my stop motion class this semester:


CHALK THING from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.


Stratacut from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.


clay head expression (liveliness) from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.

Independent Study: A Compilation

I did an independent study this semester with my school's resident experimental animator. I completed three projects, though I consider my stop-motion final my fourth project because I spent sooooo much time on it. I wrote a bit about my process and inspiration on another blog, because my teacher was actually in Belgium for most of the semester, and yes he did read all of these posts, and yes I did do this for credit. I'm embarrassed too. Ok cool anyway here are the following animations I did, in order of creation:


手水 (16mm film) from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.


24 Frames On A Windy Bridge from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.


The Little Ships from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.

Storyboard

I took storyboard this semester, and though I got off to a bad start (in that I didn't turn anything in because I was too lazy), I think I made somewhat of a breakthrough, and the technical aspects I learned have helped me a lot. So, here are my two favorite storyboards. To make it interesting for myself, I made them extremely ridiculous and a bit NSFW. (You have been warned.)

The teens at my internship really love the cereal one. I was insecure about showing it, but the instructor really wanted me to (god bless her), and when I expressed this insecurity to one of the students, she was like, "We are the 'Shrek is love, Shrek is life' generation, and nothing scares us," and I was like, tru.

ANYWAY HERE:

The Tragedy of Heloise and Abelard (in progress animatic) from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.

cereal commercial animatic from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.

Half a year later whoops

Hello there! It's been a while, hasn't it? Many things have happened. Namely, an entire semester.

I've been very productive this semester, thanks to a few wonderful teachers who allowed me a lot of freedom to play around with animation and art. I'm much happier than I was at this time last year, and I'm already starting to feel sentimental for my upcoming graduation this winter. I have a lot more friends than I did last year, too. It's all very bittersweet.

I'll be posting most of my art in subsequent, pre-scheduled posts, because THEY EACH DESERVE A SEPARATE POST. I am sorry I have neglected this blog for so long. I was just wondering to myself why I was feeling so creatively dry, and I think it's because I haven't been writing at all recently; I've just been producing and working and toiling away at various projects. That's the thing about animation/film—you stick with a single idea for much longer than you really want to, even if you've already mentally moved on from the whole concept. The actual execution takes much, much longer than one might anticipate, and much of the labor is conceptually (though not technically) mindless.

Anyway, I'M BACK, and hopefully I'll post more in the future. I haven't been taking a lot of pictures, but I will try to do that more in the upcoming months. This summer, I'm going to be a TA, take two classes for credit, take one class for fun, provide animation assistance on my teacher's upcoming film, work on my senior project, curate an experimental film festival, and hopefully finish a stop-motion animation for fun (Thporth!!). LOL KILL ME I AM ICARUS. Bye.

various figures

I took a figure painting class this semester, so I only went to, like, one figure drawing co-op. I kind of suck at painting but whatever, man. I have no time to do anything. Here's some stuff.

this is my fave figure from the semester, even tho her head and body are totally disproportionate 

2D and 3D finals

My character animation and 3D animation finals.


Sandwich from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.

11 second club thing from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.

tenuous grasp (an animation)

I made an animation!!!


critical consciousness from Marcie LaCerte on Vimeo.

classroom portraits

I like to draw in class when I have my sketchbook and a drawing utensil with me. Too often I will be missing one or the other, but I recently bought a small sketchbook and started carrying around a hard pencil case. So it's been good.

I've been really inspired by the work of Linnea Sterte, whose pencil and digital illustrations are confident, colorful, and extremely striking. I decided to digitally color some sketchbook stuff with her work in mind.

These were all drawn during a visiting artist lecture by Lauren McCarthy, whose work is incredible and very, very smart.

This is taken from a photo of Lauren McCarthy!

I just made an instagram (marslizard)

follow me at marslizard, i literally have no friends who use instagram

I needed this

A photo posted by marcia lacente (@marslizard) on Dec 1, 2015 at 7:40pm PST

i was a terrible 13 year old

I became obsessed with the Internet at a young age. I used to frequent Sparklife, a forum/blog/website thing associated with Sparknotes. Basically, it's a place where students go to procrastinate but on a platform that seems kinda academic.

My brother was talking about how he wasn't even a real person until 10th grade, which reminded me of my own journey into legitimate personhood. I'd say I self-actualized at around the same time, and I was reminiscing about an article I got published on the Sparklife blog at around that age—you can find it if you try hard enough—when I actually found the old profile associated with the blog. And the comments I used to write. And my taste.

It was like my DeviantArt profile had magically sprung from the dead, reanimated to haunt me with my younger, stupider, horrible-r self.

"It can't have been that bad!" you might say. "You're so cool and funny and articulate now! You're dope!!!" Well, yes, made-up person, I am so dope now, but back then I was a loser. And I was utterly unaware of how lame I truly was.*

So here's some proof:

At the time I was in AP Biology. So like...yeah.

The boy described here eventually would become my first boyfriend, and I would replay this exact moment in my mind over and over again for months. Months.

There were 15 comments in total, but for some reason the website wouldn't allow access to them, even when I logged back in. I will try to find my way back, and if I am successful I will update this post with all the other comments. But, for now, we can settle for some screenshots from my Sparklife profile page:

I TRULY DO NOT REMEMBER LIKING TWILIGHT AS MUCH AS I APPARENTLY DID AND I AM EXTREMELY EMBARRASSED. Also wtf Mr. Woodcock

And here's the punchline:

who even was i.....kill me

trapped in the static black of space

I made this when I was supposed to be doing other animation homework. It took much longer than expected. Sry for the glitch at the end but I think it kind of adds a retro-digital quality (? idk).

And here's just, like a creepy endless series of head turn progress shots.

sketchbook stuff

Middle-aged Muslim women in hijabs on the bus are perfect drawing subjects, because they are still and elegant and the roundness of their faces is emphasized by the encapsulating, undulating cloth that billows around them like a royal cape.

This drawing of a building on the UMN campus took me about an hour and a half, and I listened to Vampire Weekend's MVOTC one and a half times. I'm not terribly pleased with the drawing, save the very bottom and the very top. It was so cold outside that I didn't even realize I was cold, and only once I stepped inside and crawled into a nice, warm bed did I realize my thighs were stiff as stones and my abdomen was shuddering uncontrollably. Worth it, tho.

ping pong dad: a trackpad gif

a bunch of figures (i have no idea what i'm doing anymore)

I spend most of my free time feeling poorly about myself and flitting back and forth between the Word document of my resume and the PDF of my resume. What a strange place to be in life when the primary source of my confidence stems from a piece of paper—a paper with bullet points, no less. Cold, hard, methodical bullet points.

It's 5am and I'm procrastinating. Forgive me.

Maintaining this blog can be difficult. For months at a time I feel as though I am bursting with ideas and thoughts that have no place in the ephemeral Internet realm of tumblr or spoken aloud to wary friends. And for other months I feel more or less devoid of substance. I think right now at this point in time I'm encroaching on the latter territory.

The figure drawing co-op is over for the semester, which is sad because it's the one established routine I have (every Sunday I draw naked people for three to four hours). I ended on a note that my heart feels is strong but my head feels is utterly ridiculous. I'm too impatient to draw properly anymore. But I still like my drawings. Anyway. Enough rambling.

These were done over two sessions, though we had the same model present for both. Yeah, I literally have no idea what I'm doing anymore. I do kind of like the pastel drawings I did, though.

Here are some 1 minute gestures I haven't uploaded to tumblr because I think they're kind of bad! (Also it's upside down, sorry.)

What an exciting time. I'm considering drawing at the MIA every Sunday in place of figure drawing, but who knows if I'll have the time/energy/motivation to do that for the rest of the semester? *shrug emoticon*

the only two successful paintings I made in my portraiture class

alas

And here's a bonus WIP shot that got a bunch of notes because MCAD reblogged it:

October Favorites

1. Loup Blaster

She's my new favorite animator. I saw her music video for Clap! Clap!'s song "Playfulness," and then I saw it ten more times. Her work is colorful, playful (yes), and wholly unique. She's also a VJ and a refugee activist in Calais, France. And she's like, maybe two years older than me. 

Here's her tumblr. Here's the music video I'm currently obsessed with:

Clap! Clap! - '(P) Playfulness' Official Video (Black Acre) from BBBlaster on Vimeo.

2. John Singer Sargeant's Painting Techniques

This semester I'm taking an oil portrait painting class. I took one painting class over the summer—my very first (unless you count high school)—and I quite enjoyed it, though we used acrylic. 

The class was extremely, extremely difficult at first. I consider myself more or less proficient in observational drawing, thanks to my rigorous first year at MCAD, but observational painting is an entirely different matter. And portraiture, in particular, is so tenuously formed that a single brash swipe could undo hours of careful work and planning.

My teacher was mostly incompetent, if I'm to be honest, and I didn't really learn much from her in the first few weeks. You know, the stagnant I'm-terrible-at-art-and-will-never-be-better-ever phase that all nascent artists go through. But the John Singer Sargeant article helped, even if it was filtered through a secondary voice. So if you're interested in oil painting, read it, yo. 

3. Crimson Peak, directed by Guillermo del Toro

It was a fantastic film. Go watch it, if you're into pulpy, campy, terrifying, visually rich gothic romance-type stuff. Like Edgar Allen Poe mixed with

But honestly, I was mostly into it for the clothes.

Ahhhhhh the hand belt!!

So epic. So evil.

Here's an article with interviews of some of the film's costume designers.

My friend brought an entire fucking miniature cake to the theater, because it was her birthday earlier in the week, and she just pulled some metal forks out of her bag and we just ate it, right then and there. The cake ended up in my lap and I accidentally had probably 60% of it. I also stole a slushie.

4. Angel Olson

Cold weather is nigh, and with grey skies and bitter winds comes sadcore. Welcome to my new favorite sadcore artist. (I don't think she's literally sadcore but my friend called her sadcore when I showed her to him and it was funny because it's too true!!)

5. HarvardX Neuroscience: Poetry of Perception

I am obsessed with this series from HarvardX Neuroscience, particularly the animation by CalArts student Brian Smee. I love neuroscience, and I love animation, and now that I have seen an institution elegantly combine the two subjects into a beautiful, sensual, and educational creative piece of art, my life's purpose has been vicariously fulfilled.

I've watched this video maybe ten times, because it's beautiful and I'm very inspired by it.

Part 5/8: Poetry of Perception from HarvardX Neuroscience on Vimeo.

6. Oliver Sacks

I knew Oliver Sacks was a very prominent figure in both the neuroscience and the pop science/culture communities, and I knew a bit about him, though I'd never read any of his books. When I heard he passed away, I decided that I'd better educate myself and see why this man and his approach to science/medicine/life was so celebrated. I found free PDFs of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and Musicophilia—I've been reading the first on my laptop in class, and the second on my phone on the bus. I started an internship at the end of last month, so I spend quite a bit of time on the bus now.

Like many great writers, including DFW and Nabokov, his work is easy to read and easy to understand, but you feel smarter and richer for just being exposed to both the plethora of information and analysis he provides as well as the brilliance in his syntactical simplicity. I am about halfway through both books and have found them entertaining and delightful to read. And it doesn't hurt that in my head I imagine Oliver Sacks' lilting British voice narrating throughout.

If you're interested in having the PDFs, feel free to email me or something. Or just dig around—you'll find them.

7. J.C. Leyendecker

My screenwriting teacher gave a lecture at school about American illustrator J.C. Leyendecker, whom I'd never heard of until then. He was a classically trained illustrator known for his famous Arrow Collar Man advertisements and Saturday Evening Post covers. For decades he was the preeminent American illustrator and led a lavish, quintessentially "roaring twenties" lifestyle, but he eventually fell out of favor towards the end of his life. He also lived with his favorite male model, and it's speculated that they were lovers. Obviously.

His work is famous for its homoerotic undertones. I can't imagine why.

and also for the confusing gazes. ALWAYS the GAZE

What beautiful male specimen. His work feels fresh an entire century later, and I'm inspired by his level of craftsmanship. I also don't know anything about the history of illustration, so he was interesting to learn about.