On Thursday March 2nd, I attended Meet the Pros event. The guest speaker was one of my design department professors. Professor William Hartland. Prof. Hartland teaches 2D Animation, Topics in Animation  and sometimes Storyboard concepts. Hartland writes, directs, and animates for Film,TV, and the Web. He also worked on TV shows  as a storyboard artists like “Daria, Doug and Beavis and Buthead”. Daria and Doug are shows I remembered when I was younger. I found it cool that he worked with the people that created the show and that his work was aired on TV.

                                                                 

 Hartland graduated from Rhode island School of Design (1984) in animation  and  illustration. Throughout the years,  he  drew  his parents a lot.He used very fine ink pen and paper. He drew his parents them from when they were younger to when his father was  sick. Hartlandsketched a lot. He drew people everywhere he went. On the train , in restaurants, coffee shops, on the street. Hartland said that he would wear sunglasses so people can’t see him looking at them while he was drawing. He only got caught by one old lady. Professor Hartman had about 100 maybe 1000’s of sketches, and one day he had a eureka moment and decided to make his sketches into a animated film called “New York City Sketchbook”.

Doug

To start “New York City Sketchbook” Prof.Hartland started a kickstarter for $17,500 in 30 days and made $23,000. If you donated $200 the kickstarter reward was to be an a animated extra in the film. About 20 people gave $200.The software he used for the entire film was called Cinema 4D. It was over 100 shots of film. The entire process took about 3 years. He also show a little bit how Cinema 4D worked. He debut his animation here in Brooklyn for the first time.

Daria

VIDEO Trailer: https://vimeo.com/191250165.

Video Still

 

 

 

 

 

 

Man with Hat Model Sheet

QUESTIONS

 

Hardest Part? – “The hardest part was learning Cinema 4D. I’m more of a visual artist.i forced myself to learn something new. Also coming up with an ending was pretty difficult. I had multiple endings.”

Why The Man in the Hat? – “ The main character is loosely based on my father. The film is dedicated to him.”

 

Why Cinema 4D?- “ One of my friends encouraged me. It’s easier to learn.  The learning curve was simple.”

 

Do you want to go further with the film? -” Yes. I would like to do other city sketchbooks. Maybe Paris.”