simon tait

Dinovolution is a delightful and poignant short film exploring issues of evolution and extinction through the 6 year development of a young boy's dinosaur drawings.  

The beautiful and sometimes brilliantly brutal drawings epitomise how a child can process some of life’s harsh realities to better understand them.

Personally, I've always liked drawing, and have tried to encourage it in my children without being pushy. My first born, Jack, started to show real potential at an early age. He's always been fairly obsessive, and after ditching Thomas the Tank Engine, he took up T-Rex. And friends. He drew daily. I fed him A4 paper. He drew obsessively. We had to make him stop to eat. He drew the moment he got up in the morning. It's been nuts!  I kept nearly all of them. Occasionally I'd filter them a little. An idea started to grow in my mind. I watched his skill level grow. I watched their often goriness in a kind of non-judgemental appreciation. I watched and collected and gently encouraged for 6 years, from when he was three. He is about to turn 9, and yes, his drawing has slowed appreciably. My fear, that the digital world would encompass him, games would drag his creativity away, life would snuff out his creativity, have partially materialised.

But we do have the drawings, a set of drawings that wonderfully demonstrate the developmental stages of a young artist. A set that show evolutions and extinctions, life and death, birth and disaster. A set of drawings begging to be animated. A developmental map in stills that needs one last evolution. A dino evolution. A dinovolution.

I, as Artist and Animator, have dabbled for a while but never truly taken the step to making a narrative animation. This will be that step. I currently teach film making and animation to Primary School age children, and feel passionately about helping children through what I see as the transition from the tactile world to the digital. It's something rarely recognised but vitally important. I want children to be in control of their digital represenation in the world and be empowered in controlling their digital identity. This film will be something Jack can carry through his life and hopefully inspire him and other children that they have the power to create both a beautiful physical life and a stunning digital one as well. BTW, here's some advice from Jack for all you budding dinosaur artists out there... (Circa 7 years of age)

Working in 2.5D using Adobe After Effects, the film will only use Jack's drawings and will be manipulated by his father, myself. The voice over is performed by his younger sister, Saki J, who is 6 years old. Whilst the drawing's beautiful simplicity convey a childish innocence, the narrative carries the very adult realities of uncontrolled growth, greed and the commonly held ignorance of the effect uninhibited growth has on the planet.

Its also a chance to exhibit childrens drawings as valued as an adults.

Its a chance to inspire children to pursue their own creative endeavours.

Its an opportunity for me to extend my film making and animation skills.

It's the start of a new life for us as a family as I push to grow our animation teaching practice.

In a sense, it's a family revolution through dinosaurs. 

Another Dinovolution.

The funds raised will go towards paying the people involved to bring the film to a professional level that enables entry in to festivals.

The $3000 raised will be split essentially in the following ways. 30% ($1000) towards the sound designer and foley sound costs. 30% ($1000) towards animation supervision costs. 20% ($500) towards the costs of musical composition. $200 towards the costs of international film festival entry and marketing/producing costs. The last $300 will be spent paying for the production and mailing of all rewards involved in the campaign. The $3000 raised will be boosted with an equal amount in cash and inkind from myself. This will enable the film to be made. 

The more money raised, the more professional the production. I've put it in percent because if I can raise more I will pay everybody more.

Extra funds will enable greater production values which will of course create a better film. Things like buying more time in the foley suite. That's the place where a creative type bangs all sorts of crazy things together, or walks on gravel, or slaps frozen chickens on the ground then records all the sounds. Extra funds would allow a closer engagement with an animation supervisor, making a slicker production. More funds means we could dedicate more time in our working lives to making a better production. More funds means more film festivals we can eneter to get our message far and wide. However, we can do it with the bare minimum $3000. 

The challenges involved in the crowd funding process have been immense. Being pretty much a 'one man band' I have juggled a young family, multiple languages, international travel, film edits, promotional material generation and event coordination. Phew!

Once we're all done and dusted (successfully funded I hope!) then there remain some great challenges. Animation is a slow, lonely process. In the meantime, I still have to make money to pay for day to day expenses. So balancing that animation/money balance will be the biggest challenge.

The work itself is difficult. As you can imagine, it is a fairly complex process and the software can be daunting. I am pretty much self taught so the learning curve continues.

Having set a target, the next time based challenge is to set an end date. I am aiming at January 21st, 2017, for no better reason than it's my sister's birthday! The challenge then becomes setting the time aside each week dedicated to working on the animation. I estimate it will take 40 full days, which will be spread over three months. That's roughly 97 days. Just over 13 weeks. Thats 3 days a week. That is the challenge.