A few years back, a video called Animator Vs. Animation
became viral. This video features a self-aware stick figure made in Flash
fighting with its creator. A huge hit, the creator, Alan Becker, released two
more episodes over the following couple years. Just a few days ago, after years
of nothing, Becker released the fourth installment of Animator Vs. Animation.
Each Animator Vs. Animation video has the sentient drawing
interacting and fighting with its environment. There is a narrative occurring across
the four videos, but each video can easily be watched standalone. Stickman also
interacts directly with Animator via Animator’s cursor and together they wreak
havoc on whatever venue they’re in—be it the desktop, Solitaire, or, in the new
episode’s case, Facebook and an iPhone. Stickman takes tools from Flash to use
as weapons, he hits ‘Likes’ statuses on Facebook, he knocks around aps on the
iPhone. The final scene of the newest video is Stickman high-fiving Animator by
Animator choosing the Hand tool in Flash.
Not only is the animation really cool and really clever, the
use of relatively non-verbal storytelling is pretty cool. Especially in this
newest video, though there is text present throughout, much of the narrative
relies heavily on just visuals and sound effects. It’s amazing that we can
catch the emotions of a faceless stick figure, but body language and head angle
really does a lot.
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