Background
Perpetual Motion is an 86 second whirlwind animation that takes the viewer
into the mind of Erik Goulding, who at the time wrote the essential idea
for a website and then revised it and submitted it as a college entrance
exam. Needless to say, he was accepted into the school. Erik, like Kimberly
went to Suffield High School and graduated in the Spring of 2002.
The film was originally proposed to her Film/Video/Production II instructor,
Jack Beck at the Rochester Institute of Technology, as a short hand-drawn
and computer composited and colored animation to meet the requirements
of the final project for that course. While initially pitched between
laughter among all those present, Jack was more than in favor of the
idea and authorized her to begin production. Kimberly remembers Jack
stating that if she could "pull this off, it could win festivals."
Timeline
She began production during week 6 of a 10 week quarter. Drawing out of
various locations including her dorm room, she managed to sketch out the
necessary key frames that would become the cornerstone of the more than
three-hundred images that would form this internationally recognized film.
It took her one week to finish the drawings, and one week each for digital
scanning, clean up and coloring. That left her only a few days to piece
together this project which was recorded, engineered and foleyed by Gregory
Madore and mixed by Kimberly using Final
Cut Pro over the course of two or three days.
Results
The result of all of this dedication was 86 seconds of pure magic that
delights everyone that experiences it. Its been played repeatedly at
Rochester Institute of Technology events and oftentimes the narration
can't be heard over the laughter of the audience.
She secretly submitted it to a free festival that she received notification
of in an email. She had no idea at the time that this festival was the
internationally recognized Student Academy Awards, which is the academic
version of the Oscar's. She received notification a short time thereafter
that it had made it into the festival finals and finally that it had
been nominated as a winner.
"I
didn't even know that it had won anything, until Jack [production instructor]
told me that it had made it to the finals. I found out a week later
that it was a finalist and that I would be going to California."
The 86 second film, that took 5 weeks to make, won a Gold medal in the
Animation Category in 2003.
International Success
As a gold medal winner, in the fall of '03, Perpetual Motion, as well
as the other winners, began an international tour. The collected works
were met with critical acclaim with the only negative opinion of "Perpetual
Motion" being that it was too short. It is currently in distribution
in Japan and has been seen at many international festivals including
the International
Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, the I
Castelli Animati International Animated Film Festival, L’Arternativa
in Barcelona, Spain and the Evora
International Short Film Festival.
Where can we see it?
Currently all distribution and licensing for "Perpetual Motion"
is being handled by Apollo
Cinema Distribution Corporation. You can contact them (see below)
for information regarding licensing the film and getting a copy. If
you can't wait to see an actual distribution copy, you can see a Quicktime
compressed version in the Screening Room.
Aside from that, you can see it at one of the many festivals around
the world that it is currently screening at.
Apollo Cinema Distribution Corporation
1160 Alvira Street
Los Angeles, CA 90035
(323) 939-1122
ATTN: Corey Peterson
corey@apollocinema.com
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