ANIMATIONS

Heaven

Heaven

Being surrounded by an animated forest.

⸙𓍊𓋼˚ ១ 。✩*⋆ ⍋*☪⋆⍋⋆*✩

This 20-minute project refined the visual style of previous projects and expanded it into an immersive world. Filmed on a 360-degree camera, “Heaven” proved to be an extremely ambitious project to turn into an animation. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our crew, the final project premiered in IMAX and in VR.

Behind the scenes available to watch HERE.

Sapwood played by Katherine Montes.

Directed by Kai Tattersall.
Animation Director: Valerie Jackson.
Written by Valerie Jackson, Kai Tattersall.
Produced by Diya Correa.
Performance Director: Max Von Der Horst.
Director of Photography : Partho Gupte.
Production Designer: Madison Kloeber.
Costume Designer: Cas Pryer.
Props by Madison Kloeber & Ross Kloeber.
Character Design by Maximilian Salow.
Sound Design by Cassie Howell.
Sound Mixed by Cassie Howell & Kai Tattersall.
Music Written by Sebastian Sack.
Music Processed by Jason O'Connor & Kai Tattersall.
Singers: Daniel Leese, Koji Sakano, Hannah McDonnel.
First Score Session Engineer: Ashley Fulton.
Second Score Session Engineer: Kai Tattersall.

Casting Directors: Max Von Der Horst, Diya Correa.
Assistant Animation: Max Von Der Horst.
Sound Captured by: Ethan Michaels, Valerie Jackson.

Faculty Advisor: Mike Patterson.
Special Thanks: Eric and Charlotte Pottle, Erick Ziegler, John Rosenberg, Andrew Leist, Dan Wolf, Miho and Simon Tattersall, Cheryl and Jay Jackson.

Once Upon A Strawberry Meeting

An animated slice of life.

✿ஜீ۞ஜீ✿•.¸¸.•*`*•.•ஜீ☼۞☼

A new compositional method improved the quality of the animation compared to earlier projects. The video is a compilation of both live-action and A.I.-assisted animation. Still, a bulk of the work relies on animators.

Farmer played by Max Von der Horst.
Created by Kai Tattersall.
Animation directed by Valerie Jackson.

Inside The Wolf

Chomp chomp

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

A visual adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood.

The video is a compliation of both live action and traditional animation, run through an AI-assisted process. A bulk of the work still relies on animators. Valerie Jackson lead the animation pipeline.

Micaela Ruiz played RED.

Hand of God

“I'm going to the river where the current rushes by… Hand of God coming from thе sky.”

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis “Hand of God”. Goliath Enterprises Limited, 2021.

๑۞๑,¸¸,ø¤º°`°๑۩ . ๑۩ ,¸¸,ø¤º°`°๑۞๑

Hand of God uses artificial intelligence to interpolate animation from a keyframe. Made using all original content. Written and acted by Jason O’Connor. Animation by Valerie Jackson.

Tornado

Lure of the Underground

“Ég anda, sem betur fer”
I breathe, fortunately.

Sigur Rós, “Ég anda”. WMG, 2012.

.·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·.

Lure of the Underground imagines a digital concert for Sigur Rós’ “Ég anda.” The visualizer uses artificial intelligence to interpolate animation from a keyframe. A.I. Liquid GAN animates the dancing audience. Visuals made using all original content. Written and animated by Valerie Jackson. Acted by Jason O’Connor and Valerie Jackson.

FILMS

Liminal Places

The feed is a place of friendship, love, community, and fairytale. Everyone is surrounded by an interested audience and stories curated just for you.

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Liminal Places utilizes artificial intelligence to create fully artificial voices. Manual editing allowed controlled intonations and pacing. Each voice relates to a person in my life.

Environments were constructed using photogrammetry. Augmenting the scans allowed for top-to-bottom production design and the visualization of impossible structures. Locations were collected from my hometown.

The social media feed combined fiction and reality. Sampled captions were modified to curate a realistic selection of diction and content. “User-strings” were created to fit each post.

Granular synthesis created the ambience and score. Live modulation of an original score married visuals and sound. The score was controlled through a rigged-joystick.

This is a USC junior thesis. A big thanks to Madison Kloeber, Valerie Jackson, and Jason O’Connor for their invaluable contributions. Also, many thanks to the amazing faculty: Amy Reynolds Reed, Brad Barnes, Dianne Farrington, John Rosenberg, Navid McIlhargey, and Rich Hyland.

Tell Me What You Think

Exploring a digital playground is a perfect way to meditate on your thoughts, free from the sensationalism of the real world, and curated just for you.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Tell Me What You Think utilizes motion tracking for first-person point-of-view. The process involved some couple hundred sticky notes and detailed choreography. The cinematography was done by Anna Waldron. Valerie Jackson dressed the environmental elements.

Elements of sound were mapped to a keyboard and played live. The sample bank includes home videos, synthetic sounds, foley, and other sound effect libraries. Narration was done by Vivian Gray.

This is a USC project. A big thanks to my amazing producer, Partho Gupte, and my instructor, Brad Barnes.

ILY2222

The bedroom of a narcissist is the most dangerous place to be.

═════ஓ๑♡๑ஓ═════

ILY2222 utilizes AI to synthesize predictive text based on only one side of a conversation. The lines are delivered by Jason O’Connor, and shot by Max Von der Horst. The scene took 26 takes.

The end sequence was created using NVIDIA’s GAUGAN. Artificial intelligence translated stop motion animation into photorealistic landscapes. The result was manually stylized.

The score is played live. Additional sound design elements and vocal effects were added for aesthetic effect. Some instruments automatically react to the visuals.

This is a USC project. Thanks to my encouraging instructor, Jennifer Warren.

AI EXPERIMENTS

GauGAN Stop Motion

Animating an environment into a face.

──❀*̥˚──◌─ ≪ °✾° ≫ ─◌──❀*̥˚─

NVIDIA’s GauGAN translates segmentation maps into photorealistic landscapes. The process allows users to delineate natural elements like “dirt,” “grass,” “water,” and “sky” and draw them in. It also allows custom map uploads.

I used After Effects to convert the sample footage (David Hoffman’s “1967 - Teenage Runaways Lost On The Streets of NYC”) into a segmentation map. Each frame was manually uploaded and processed.

Other stylization techniques were added for aesthetics.

Face Morph + Lip Sync

Making a big sing-along.

.•°¤*(¯`★´¯)*¤° . °¤*(¯´★`¯)*¤°•.

Artificial intelligence allows infinite generations of original faces. Combined with A.I. lip sync technology, I made a morphing collage of faces singing along to “Hand of God” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds & Warren Ellis.

The first section is a demonstration of the lip sync technology by itself; the scond incorporates face morph; the third is a re-interpolation of the third.

This was later repurposed for “Hand of God,” a more recent project.

Liquid GAN

Using artificial intelligence to dance.

꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂

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The relatively new “Liquid GAN” can sample human motion and apply it to another image. The process, at the time of completion, produced messy results. The limbs would disappear and the resolution suffered. I decided to lean into it.

FKA Twigs’ “Cellophane” felt like a good match. With “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” as a reference, six dancing models were created. I found that the starting frame affected the fidelity of the results most.

The background was created by translating club footage (found under CC on YouTube) into a segmentation map, then mapping it onto a landscape. Light beams became mountains, the stage--a lake, people--grass, etc.

In the months after, Liquid GAN improved enough to create a convincing model, and was used to creating a dancing crowd for “Lure of the Underground,” a more recent project.

MISC. EXPERIMENTS

The Feed

A feed reduced to a sea of colors. How reductive can social media get before all personality is lost?

░▒▓██▓▒░░▒▓██▓▒░░▒▓██▓▒░

Created from digital grain, each post is assigned a color scheme. Sampled captions ripped from the web are assigned to appropriate colors. The length of time spent on stationary or static, what post gets liked, what gets ignored--these choices contribute to the viewer’s personality.

The visuals were manually compressed for aesthetics. Original score created using digital noise machines.

Silver Swagger

A digital diary of Silver Swagger.

★·.·´¯`·.·★ $ ★·.·´¯`·.·★

A couple hundred videos. A few dozen subscribers. His interests include baseball, YouTube, and lottery tickets. Videos collected from his channel chronicle a journey towards fame and fortune.

Original score comprised entirely with YouTube samples.

WWW

360 degree video on overstimulation.

▄ █ ▄ █ ▄ ▄ █ ▄ █ ▄ █

Created through crude 3D mapping. The sky dome was created by Hunter Hartz. The buildings by Max Von der Horst. Original score.

Best enjoyed on the YouTube app.