Fish Gone
Fish Gone is a stop animation movie that takes an entertaining, light hearted look at human kinds lack of foresight as they push through life without regard to the destruction left behind. From the surface, the story is about a fisherman who is out of luck, unable to catch anything other than reminders of why there are no fish, yet there is deeper meaning intended. The story is easily translated to life, governments, politicians, and general human kind not paying attention to the day to day accumulated effects of their actions. In the end, as the fisherman loses the key to his livelihood, the ocean itself, he flicks the switch and it all goes away.
Does this mean the fisherman gave up? Or in flicking the switch does he chose a brave new beginning? The intent is to leave a positive feel to the piece as it ends with the quote, “We can’t change what we’ve done, But… We can change what we do.” (Anderson, 2017)
The inspiration of this piece comes from a 1970’s childhood perspective, rich in stop animation of all forms such as cut paper, puppetry, Claymation, and chalk. The sequences were shot in live mode through camera control using the industry standard Dragon Fire hardware/software system. Final editing of audio, video and title sequences is performed with Final Cut Pro.
The angle chosen to shoot the movie is from directly above the three-dimensional set, allowing depth of field play while ultimately rendering a two-dimensional experience through the eye of the camera lens. This allowed props to come and go freely from all angles as well as pop up out of nowhere, or appear to come from the water and inside the boat.
