Journey Through a Melting Brain – Stratacut by David Daniels

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David Daniels is a filmmaker, director as well as a co-founder of Bent Image Lab, an animation studio located in Portland, Oregon. An master’s student from the prestigious art school, Cal Arts, David Daniels specializes mixed-media, clay, foam and character animation.

David Daniels is most well known for his Stratacut animation. Although it is known that he had coined the term Stratacut animation, this technique was seen used even back to the days of 1920s and 30′s. Works of German animator Oskar Fischinger during the 1920′s and 30′s such as this one, showed that he was an experimental visual-motion artist.

In geology, the word Strata represents layers or slices of rock, dirt or mud, hence the name seem appropriate for this technique. Stratacut animation is a form of clay and stop motion animation. It is created through a ‘loaf of plastercine’ that had been internally packed tight and loaded with varying imagery. The front of the loaf is then sliced into thin sheets, revealing a new image to the camera. A capture is done at the end of each cut.It can almost be said that this animation is done in the 4th dimension as the ever-changing imagery is located inside the packed clay. It is a highly tactile and planned approach to animation as the internal imagery must be heavily considered when building the loaf of clay. The pace at which the animation moves must also be considered when building.

Despite being an avid fan of stop motion animation, clay and plaster cine animation was my least favourite. I never liked the look and the feel that clay animation gave; something about the colour and the construction always make it seem a bit eerie and scary or simply uneasy feeling for me. Monsters Inc is my favourite movie of all times, but I wasn’t interested at the beginning because the 3D animation looked too similar to clay animation. However, I recently came upon David Daniel’s work and my view on clay animation changed. His work is colourful and vibrant, it can even say it’s psychedelic.  It gives off an eerie and scary feeling, but the point proves it successful and as strange as it sounds, I find it almost pleasing to look at. It draws in the audience through its ever changing colour and imagery the plastercine produces.. The molding and and the folding of the clay builds unplanned abstract shapes and a mosaic of melded patterns is created. Despite molding the clay can create accidental and unintentional shapes, David Daniels’ work shows a controlled motion of the work. I believe that true wonders of this work comes when one realizes the technique and creation method of the animation. The ultimate admiration comes when one realizes the amount of  time and effort that Daniels’ must have put into each loaf to create this fine, abstract and surreal piece of artwork

For an interview with David Daniels, click here.

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