Cyriak

We were treated recently to a talk from the animator Cyriak. He is known for his bizarre animation style, as demonstrated by the above link. There are a few ideas I took away from the talk, and his style of animating and work ethic were very inspirational to me.


Cyriak was very honest. He didn't boast stories about fighting to be recognised, in fact he seemed very laid back and down to earth. he presented some of his animations, which all received a welcome applause. His style seemed very unorthodox, with the look of graphic stop motion animation. When asked how he produced some of his work, he explained that he 'Adobe After Effects' a lot, which is generally used visual effects and post production. What also made his animations different was the crazy subject matter. Barn yard animals performing synchronised dance routines before transforming in to bizarre looking spiders. You could see clearly that these were ideas straight from his head, with no desired audience restricting his thoughts. His syle for me beard some resemblance to Terry Gilliam's graphic animations for the 'Monty Python' series:

Cyriak has a style which I imagine would be hard to imitate. What I personally took away from the talk was an understanding of how to balance independent work with commissioned work to keep afloat. Cyriak later spoke of how he takes on jobs for financial income. Clients will contact him with details of what they want. Cyriak will then let the client know whether he is interested. Once everything is given the go ahead, he can then begin animating. Generally, the client will request changes, meaning that the process will take a while. He also warned that clients be very particular, generating lots of work, and sometimes in the end loose interest and cancel the deal. He also explained that sometimes the client will dilute their original idea so much, that in the end the results may turn out very poor. Although this is not ideal as an animator would ideally want to be happy with all their work, it is assuring to know that one can make a living through their hobby. 

The commissioned work aside, Cyriak shared with us a fantastic collaboration video he created titled 'Meow'. The animation was about the zombie apocalypse set in a city inhabited by kittens, and was the result of a great idea actually going through to completion. This reassures me that along side making a living, an animator can still make time for personal projects. I will conclude this post with in my opinion, one of Cyriak's strongest animations: