victorperrotti motion shorts

I chose to animate an excerpt of Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl. The Excerpt is from Ginsberg's reading of Howl at the Big Table Chicago Reading in 1959. I read this poem in college, years ago and it still sticks with me today. At first I had planned on animating the most recognizable lines of the beginning, which starts out with, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked..."

Then I decide to hunt for a less frequently quoted section. I decided upon,

"who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury, who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy, and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia."

This poem is a wild ride through the rebellious mind of Allen Ginsberg.

This project involved creating an animated countdown. I chose to include some photographs from my Black Hole Sun project, into the countdown. The photographs are solarized images, in the tradition of Man Ray's work.

I created a leaf shutter and placed five photographs behind it. Each firing of the shutter reveals a different photograph and a different number spinning down. I placed the numbers where they felt visually pleasing in relation to the content of the photographs. I also tried to get the numbers to land close to the center and along lines. To me, looking through a camera lens is like dreaming while awake.

This science fiction movie came out in 1976, in a time before computer generated imagery. The movie takes place in the year 2274. In this time, people live under domes in a synthetic environment. Basic needs are met as the population level is kept in check. This stasis is maintained by a computer. I read the Marvel Comic adaptation of this movie as a kid and it captured my imagination.

The life-clock gems in the movie are embedded into the palms of people at their inception. A persons life-clock begins as clear (white) and progress through yellow, green, then red. When an individual approaches thirty years of age, their life-clock begins blinking red and black. At this time you must enter Carousel and attempt to achieve Renewal. Some however, chose to run. If you run, you are hunted by a sandman whose job it is to terminate runners. The Ankh represents sanctuary and is known by an underground group, seeking life beyond the domes and ultimately beyond thirty years of age. The underground group believes that Carousel is a hoax.

I chose to use this movie for a motion graphics project because the movie contains a lot of symbolism. I created the wave pattern used in the background for its retro, Windows 95 feel. Later, I realized that this type of generated wave pattern is almost twenty years older then the movie itself. It simultaneously gives the move trailer a more updated yet retro feel.

This movie cannot be directly compared to modern day sci-fi movies. Logan's Run is a bit awkward and clunky. It makes me think of an early Star Trek set but with more colorful costumes and a larger, more expansive set design. The women's costumes are scant and there is a brief nude scene. Why this scene is in there, I do not know; except to say it was the '70s. Today, Logan's Run enjoys a cult following.