
Overview
Film producers Joanne Nerenberg and Kate Novak and director Dana Ben-Ari sought graphic overlays for their short film, The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong. The film explores writer Gary Shteyngart's experience with a botched circumcision at age seven, shortly after his family's arrival in America. It delves into the trauma and the broader implications of the procedure, sparking a public discussion about circumcision.
Approach
The filmmakers came across posted exercises by my business partner during our time in graduate school in an alternative methods course where among a number of processes we delved into direct film animation. Direct film animation is a process by which the physical film is drawn upon or scratched or what have you to then be run through an optical printer or projector for image capture or simple viewing. We discussed the possibility of making a true direct film animation for the film but budget and scheduling constraints were too tight to risk overages that would likely come with required revisions.
Understanding the concept of the passage of lengths of film through a projector gate, I instead suggested and devised a method of digital hand-drawn animation, a frame-by-frame process conducted in Photoshop with wet brushes, to simulate the appearance of direct film animation. Adding a slightly roughened rounded rectangle border as a frame and an extended loop of dust, scratches, and the occasional hair completed the look.
The credit sequence was as simple as choosing a font and following the producers' spreadsheet of positions with associated names.
Select stills from final film





















Select stills from credit sequence









Reflection
This project was a offered a glimpse into how analog methods can be simulated to strong effect. One convenience of the process I followed was how accurately I could produce animations while still retaining a fairly messy, inaccurate feel as I was working on the surface of a 24" Cintiq rather than a 16mm frame of film over a light box. Though some of the romance of the classroom was missing, there was no getting my hands dirty with black leader dust, I still feel that there was fruitful experience in exploring possibilities for novel animations for a novel film.
Final overlays