“Advanced Doodling” turns stop-motion animation inside-out

Once a week for two years, film-maker Mike Cantor invited a team of artists to his Oakland, CA studio to participate in an epic experiment in 3-dimensional doodling. Together, they generated kaleidoscopic moving sculptures in a dazzling variety of media and colors, all animated by stop motion photography. Cameras also caught the action of the artists themselves, both in documentary footage and through intricately staged time-lapse shoots.

After over 2000 artist-hours of creation, Cantor spliced the stop motion footage and the “making of” footage together into an astounding mash-up of process and product:  “Advanced Doodling.”

The film premiered on Mar 8, 2015, to a riveted audience at the historic Castro theatre in San Francisco as part of the Scary Cow film festival, where it took home the Members Award, Best Visual Effects, and Best Editing.

“Advanced Doodling” is the third short film to come out of Mike Cantor’s “Hot Velcro Action” studio.  His previous offerings “Hot Velcro Action” (Best Experimental Film, LA International New Wave Film Festival 2010) and “Freckle” (Best Music Video, San Francisco Frozen Film Festival, 2013), screened in over 25 national and international film festivals.  Both of these films featured Cantor’s unique animation style, in which stop motion techniques are used to create vivid multi-media sculptures that evolve over time and scale.

“This film is a love-letter to the process of making art” says Cantor. “When shooting stop motion, I constantly encounter these little scenes, like a tray of bead-encrusted easter eggs, and think to myself  ‘this is more beautiful than any art I am ever going to make with it.’  ‘Advanced Doodling’ is my attempt to give these gems their moment in the spotlight.”

“Advanced Doodling” made its online debut on Vimeo.com on July 1, 2015:
https://vimeo.com/MikeCantor/AdvancedDoodling.

For more information about “Advanced Doodling” including production photos and an interview with director Mike Cantor, see https://mikecantor.net/press-release-advanced-doodling.

About Hot Velcro Action Productions

Hot Velcro Action is the film studio of award-winning video artist Mike Cantor.