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DESIGN SILVER AWARD

PROFESSIONAL

2002 – IMAGES 26

Steve May is an Animation Director and freelance Illustrator based in London. He was born in sunny Hastings & spent his childhood drawing lots of things and discovering interesting ways of injuring himself.

He has illustrated widely for children's books and editorial, directed animation for commercials and TV as well as his own animated films. He is represented by Arena Illustration & Picasso Pictures for animation

He still draws lots but injures himself less regularly these days.

The brief was a final film for Steve’s MA at the Royal College of Art, a terrible animated gastric nightmare ensues after a hideous gourmand swallows a live lizard with bizarre consequences

“Winning awards like these is always very flattering, especially to be recognised by your peers. It's also invaluable publicity and means more people get to see your work, which is always a good thing.”

stevemay.biz

stevemaystuff.blogspot.co.uk

BRIEF: Self-initiated. It was my final MA film at the Royal College of Art.

MATERIALS: Flash, After Effects, comically slow computers.

RESEARCH: The film is very informed by '50s animated cartoons. It was also an attempt to marry my illustrative style with animation. I have notebooks upon notebooks of sketches and abandoned script versions. 



PROCESS: Endless script re-writes. The film was entirely hand animated with a graphics tablet – it was the first time I'd made a film with this technique so I was completely in the dark about how or if it was going to work at all.

RESISTANCES: I came from a very 'art animation' background and I decided I dearly wanted to make a 'cartoon' but part of me was convinced I'd 'sold out' for some of the time. Nobody I knew had ever made a film with this technique so technology was incredibly troublesome at times.

INSIGHT: There's no such thing as 'selling out' (see above) – make what you love.

NUMBERS: Flash 4. 256 megabytes of RAM – technical hell!