Mr. Drug Pusher (Masking Experiment)

Mr. Drug Pusher (masking experiment) from Michael Shaw on Vimeo.

"Do not attempt to hide things which cannot be hid."

This animation is inspired by one of Aesop's more obscure novels, The Goat and the Goatherd. The story warns those who conceal the unlawful acts they have committed. Their deeds will catch up with them, and usually in the worst way possible. This moral manifests itself in my animation as the drug pusher, like many criminals, believes that his acts will go unnoticed by the authorities. He disappears from the cops with a laugh, yet his escape is only a figment of his imagination.

The more i read these fables, the more I realize how violent and hardcore some of these stories can be. There are a lot of stories that follow the "predator, prey, superior human" formula. I wanted to replicate that formula with the characters in my animation; The bystander, the drug pusher, and the police.

This animation's a bit longer then my others, accommodating for my desire to work with changing emotions and facial expressions. I also wanted to experiment with multiple patterns and textures within the animation to distinguish between different spaces and feelings. Masking helped add to the "sinister" nature of Mr. Drug, letting him appear out of nowhere and disappear just the same.