spktra

Regina (@_almanemes) and I talked a lot about how we wanted to the hair to feel in movement throughout the film. Expressive and lively and a little violent to really drive home how hard the wind was. This was the first scene she did on the whole project and she absolutely killed it.
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That’s exactly why we did it!

Yes!!

From sourcing the same paper used by Studio Ghibli to reworking the film from scratch: inside the making of Spirit Jumper I chat to multi-hypenate artist spktra about the intricate and painstaking work that went into bringing his animated music video to life

Did another interview, this time with Altered Narratives about the production, influences, and so much more. Read it here: mtrask.substack.com/p/from-sourc...

Thank you! I’m not even an animator either but still made Spirit Jumper haha

There was a free resolve dctl that looked convincing for animation, and I used that I the mononodes halation depending on the scene. Some of the halation methods look great for live action but are too aggressive on animation even dialed way back, at least in my case

You’d think haha but to make it look convincing and realistic you gotta put the extra effort in

Well it’s not easy even digitally haha but the difficulty is always worth it

100% - most animation now uses bland glow effects compared to this

That’s so sick!

In hindsight that’s a wonderful idea. In the present, damn, I wish I did that haha. I’m so glad you liked the video!

That’s 100% part of it, I can’t find the reference but I believe a large part of the sparkles was that they’d take paraffin paper, pope a bunch of holes through it, run the light box from behind through it and move it quickly between frames causing it to sparkle

Black paper, airbrush, toothbrush spray and impressionism!

It’s human! It’s connecting with something we innately feel without necessarily being able to say why upon viewing

Love all of those!

Yep! You just gotta know all the subtleties to look for

One of my absolute favorite techniques in animation gets a thoroughly obsessive breakdown here:

YouTube video by spktra spktra - Spirit Jumper (Official Animated Music Video) [4K]

Then take a look at the music video that was a direct result of my research! www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC_8...

It’s pretty good actually! I guess you gotta think about it in terms of the goal cause a photographed oscilloscope is going to look different than what I’m talking about in the article

Hopefully Spirit Jumper can capture some of that for you!

This is such a cool goddamn article

I can’t tell you how long I tried to find this exact forum post again when I was writing the article, it was just copied in my notes and continently the one piece I didn’t cite 😭

We love it! Thank you!

Working entirely independently, spktra wrote, directed, edited, colored, and composited the film himself, collaborating with just two animators and a veteran 'Batman Beyond' character designer to nail the video's '90s cel animation aesthetic.

really cool article about something i've loved for a long time without even noticing!

I have zero connection to animation other than having watched it, but this article about technical lighting effects in cel animation and how these analog processes created effects almost impossible to replicate digitally is INCREDIBLY interesting!

This is such a cool, cool read. It feels really good to see spktra thinking along lines that I can understand, and seeing the result of applying that thinking!

Dangerous Light On a lost effect from the analog film era.

Fantastic breakdown over at @ani-obsessive.bsky.social of how to digitally emulate an analog style light glow by spktra (Josh Fagin)

Lots of similarities with work we've been doing in AgBr.app

animationobsessive.substack.com/p/dangerous-...

Thank you!

So many subtle little things all happening at once