{"id":14620,"date":"2017-02-10T17:05:57","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T01:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=14620"},"modified":"2023-09-29T11:35:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T18:35:02","slug":"paying-homage-ut-tower-mass-shooting-victims-life-affirming-animation","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/paying-homage-ut-tower-mass-shooting-victims-life-affirming-animation\/","title":{"rendered":"Paying Homage to UT Tower Mass Shooting Victims with Life Affirming Animation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Craig Staggs is the lead animator for the little animation studio based in Austin, Texas, also the home base of filmmaker Keith Maitland. Staggs’ company did the brilliantly layered animation for Maitland’s film TOWER<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0Of that film which tells the story of the heroes and victims who were on the University of Texas campus that fateful August day in 1966, David Edelstein wrote in his review for NPR<\/a>, “we’re on such intimate terms with Maitland’s subjects that when the faces of the real, aged people burn in over their younger animated counterparts, the effect is unspeakably moving.”<\/p>\n

The film’s unique look and production style used both actors (quoting real dialogue from the real-life survivors) and dramatic recreations, animated rotoscopically, all woven together with interviews with the actual people and archival footage. From start to finish this unique production’s\u00a0process took about 18 months to complete. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Viewers surely will wonder, as I did, how much of the film’s animation is straight computerized, and did the use of technology make it harder for the artists involved to feel connected to the emotional core of this story? <\/span><\/p>\n

“I’ll say it like this: we don’t hire software engineers,” Staggs told us. “We hire artists. The computer and software are just tools. We use them the same way a writer uses a computer to create a script or an editor uses a computer to cut a film. The computer, in our case, is replacing the animation equipment you find in a traditional studio with digital tools like software or digital cameras. Each shot was created by a team of artists using a\u00a0digital pen as brush, the computer as canvas and their intellect as the creative engine.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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That canvas that Staggs’ team uses is a French animation program called TVPaint. “One great thing about the studios using this software is that none of our films look remotely alike,” Staggs said. “It’s a testament to the power of the artist’s hand in this type of animated film-making.”\u00a0Each shot is composed of several layers, from background up to the\u00a0characters, and then foreground and special effects layers added on top. About four or five animators would work on each shot as the clip made its way from design to production.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before doing his own thing as an animator, Staggs gained valuable experience working on\u00a0Richard Linklater’s groundbreaking rotoscoped sci-fi,\u00a0A Scanner Darkly<\/em>. “Scanner<\/em> was a lesson in how hard it is to actually make an animated film,” Staggs said. “<\/span>Even making a film with a seemingly sufficient budget and amazing crew can be filled with unpredictable struggles and pitfalls. I never thought TOWER<\/em> was not<\/em> going to be hard. I built a team that could roll with that. And we got what we expected. It was a hard movie to make, but it was important and we persevered.” <\/span><\/p>\n

For TOWER<\/em>‘s own aesthetic, Staggs told me\u00a0that their conversations and visual vocabulary started with A Scanner Darkly<\/em>, as well as director Keith Maitland’s previous film, The Eyes of Me<\/em><\/a>, “and some rotoscoping he’d\u00a0developed for commercial work. “Then we quickly moved into creating a look and feel that was unique to this project and continued to develop that throughout production.”<\/span><\/p>\n