Cedric

Cedric was my first short stop-motion film, created in my second year at UCA Farnham.

Cedric was a simple animation about a man in his study, listening to the radio. His radio tunes out, so he tunes it back in and on comes Billy Holiday – Gloomy Sunday. Cedric happily sits back down and opens up his notebook, but he finds that everything around him is coming to life. His notes start singing along to the music, figures in his bookcase start to dance and as Cedric slowly gets up and dances around his desk (a little gingerly, as he’s got some years behind him), pictures on the wall come to life and light switches start turning on paintings. He then sits back down and his radio tunes out again.

My model making had a lot to be desired back then. I was using air drying clay which didn’t dry very hard and never seemed to keep any angles. Cedric’s facial features were tiny bits of paper which were swapped with each expression and his hands were made from bits of bent wire in felt.

Cedric had a good metal articulated armature though, which unfortunately meant he was taken apart when the film was finished so that I could make my puppet for my next animation. Poor guy!