Herman Brown is Feeling Down is a graduation project by animator Dan Castro from London. The short animated film features a combination of abstract shapes mixed with the sound effect composed by Kenny Young. The creator Castro says:
“I wanted to take the feelings of anxiety I was having and try and deal with them in a bright and colorful way, a way that kind of embraced them for what they are, and what they really felt like to me.
“As the film was animated primarily in After Effects in a sort of unrigged, cut-up style, it meant I could work very quickly and test things out and see how I felt about them,” he adds. “But this process took a long time to develop a structure, and when I was stressing out about it I decided to blow off some steam and try something new, experimenting with traditional 35mm scratch animation – painting inks directly onto 35mm film, using bleach to remove the chemicals on it, all sorts.
“This required very little planning – I allowed myself to just roll with it and see what happened. That’s how the stress-jazzy bits were made – it was actually the most relaxing and fun part of the process!”
You can see the film by clicking play below!
