The irony of using a robot to make something that feels more human | Daniel Savage

Hello. Sorry. Anyway, I do stuff like this. My name is Daniel Savage. You can call me Dan. Uh, it's fine. I do stuff like this uh for working in with clients in fashion, tech, editorial, music. Um, big screen, small screens, uh, print, uh, I do short films, uh, occasionally a music video, uh, some community projects. But for this talk, I'm going to focus mostly on what I do uh the studies I do between bigger projects

trying to make sense of it all and uh how it's all connected and how it led to where the work is now. This was a uh early college project where I used an image transfer technique. Um, so you uh use citrus solvent and rub it onto another piece of paper, scan it back in, put it all together, and it's just like janky uh student work, but it's really similar to what I do now, which is weird. Um, I should have just stopped there. Uh, early in my career, I was kind of doing whatever came to me. Um, and it was really fun, but I just I never took the time to uh develop my own identity as an artist. So, I started experimenting with more intent and more focus. Um, stripping it down to the bare minimum. So, this one was kind of a breakthrough because I found this structure in it where uh it kind of gives your eye something to follow, but there's but it's like scribbles and it's like kind of crazy. So, it's finding that like controlled chaos. Um, I started experimenting with uh different mediums on paper, seeing what the uh collage would look like animated. Um, and I was always fascinated by uh production cells um from old cartoons. I love the idea that um animation can both be both a film and a piece of art that you hang on your wall. Um trying color, paint, stencils, uh trying to be as expressive as possible with uh as little animation as possible. Um and then exploring uh things a little more illustrative uh using this idea of replacement animation um in 2D with watercolor. So replacement animation is a stop motion technique where you swap out the object for each uh photograph. Um this is another one just using uh flowers. Um and it was actually screen printed onto denim uh and then turned into these jeans. Uh so really pushing this idea that animation can kind of be more than um just a film.

Uh another thing I was exploring were these we weaving loop patterns. They kind of like animate uh into themselves and it looks like it feels like it never ends. And then applying that idea to things like these um abstract landscapes. And so when I was making those collages, uh the collage animations, I had a bunch of stencils. So I became obsessed with making these uh geometric drawings and I just filled a bunch of sketchbooks. Um starting simple and getting a little more complex. Um adding a little collage to it. Uh creating these little scenes with these uh block characters. Um, and then I was using a grid notebook and I started to think about them as like little modular drawings. Um, I was also using this rainbow pencil that you get at like the gift shop. It's pretty funny. Um, but so then I started exploring how these sketches could be more uh translated into like refined digital animation um using a one by one grid uh so the assets fit in like a puzzle uh and then they could be rearranged like digital collages. uh and then incorporating the handdrawn uh patterns and illustration um so it wasn't too clean you know trying to find that balance between the two um then I went one step further uh with the idea of a modular system uh and just with some simple code I created uh endless variations um and the you could see like the there's like the landscape in there the patterns the characters that I was drawing um so I love this idea of bringing in my graphic design roots uh with the looser hand uh animation. Um but it was missing something. It still felt like kind of sterile. And so I had this idea to introduce a pen plotter into my process. Um so it was this way of working digitally but also physically. Um I'd like to say it's efficient but it's actually kind of a pain in the ass. Uh and there's like an irony of using a robot to make something that feels more human. um especially now with uh everything that's happening at AI. So uh started really simple black and white line animations um you know taking that earlier idea of a replacement animation but now it has this warmth to it um while still being like super tight and geometric but then also being gestural with it uh and keeping a clean crop to give it that structure. uh really pushing it in ways that I just never would be able to um draw on my own or ways that I would have even thought to draw. Um so I started introducing color uh first with an airbrush um which gives it this cool vintage look. Uh then seeing uh what happens when it's spray paint um how it interacts with the lines. So you can't actually use a water water-based marker to draw on spray paint. So spray painting on top of it. Uh the line actually reveals itself which uh was a really interesting find. Um exploring multiple mediums. So here we got uh spray paint gouache and markers. Um and you can see there's like a moray pattern on the shirt which you can only get really by using thin straight lines. Um so really taking advantage of the tool. Um then trying to

do full color. um first is lines and then using the lines to do fills. Um and this overlap I realized that I could get seven colors out of three markers. So now at this point I'm sort of looking at more looking at it more as a print making process rather than a drawing. So um adding in black to get that full value range um and then also uh getting a nice print out of it. Um, and I also love uh hiding the animation so you it kind of lives on its own as a print um instead of a grid of individual images. And then being able to tile and scale it. Um, going back to that modular idea from earlier. Uh, I also found a way to use 3D animation, breaking it up by value, um, so you can flatten it and then get that color overlap. Um, and then seeing how far you can push the resolution. So, you know, when it's scaled up, you don't really know what you're looking at. Uh, and then as the camera dollies back, you can kind of, um, this canyon kind of reveals itself. Uh, and this was the culmination of all these abstract landscapes that I was doing. This is in downtown uh, LA across the street from the Crypto Arena, which is [snorts] terrible, terrible name. Used to be called the Staple Center.

Um, so, okay, the abstract stuff is set. So now I'm like, how do I add some narrative to it? Uh, how do I do something that's a little more representational like these portraits? Shout out Trisha Dejarden, who's often the subject of my work. Um, seeing how typography would work and uh, this was some type designed by Justin Hunt Salone. Um, exploring fluid simulations uh, but then adding a car to ground it and kind of um, tell a little story. Um, and I started uh applying it to editorial commissions. Um, this is for the LA Times. Uh, so it's still a landscape. Um, but now it's more identifiable. Uh, incorporating some conceptual ideas and um, telling a story and then using a frame from the animation um, for print. And so that was like I felt like that one was like on the right track and I but then I wanted to see how literal I could actually get with this. Um so I started with the mundane household objects, seeing how much fun I could have with something relatively boring. Um and then seeing what a house looked like uh with this little homage to Hney. Um and then uh exploring fluid sim simulations, you know, trying to add a little bit of humor to it. Um, so I had a really great opportunity to stress test this with uh the New York Times magazine. Uh, editorial is kind of it's a great place to try new ideas. Uh, they're willing to take more risks where a brand might want to see it proven first. Um, so the article is about like how AI sees you. Uh, no AI was used in the making of this, but um the it was AI scans all your different body parts and so it forced me to draw these random objects that I just probably wouldn't have on my own. Um, and then making it work for print uh using the animation as frames across a full spread um or as a single frame across the spread. Uh, so I don't know. I think a cool metaphor for this is um [snorts] you're kind of like searching for parts and building a bike and then the bike's built. You're just kind of riding it around. Um and so now I can get really abstract with it and apply it to something literal. Um I could even go back to earlier ideas uh with this new point of view. Um and then VR auditions invited me to collect this recent um body of work into a book. Um, and you know, it keeps with that theme of trying to give more than more life to animation. So, it's um, not just a film. Um, but there's also an AR component so you can watch the animation as you flip through it. So, what's next, right? Um, it's this like perfect little package thing. Um, but how do I modify it? How do I keep it interesting? Um, so I'm trying to incorporate other mediums. Uh, trying to use screen printing in this process. Um, trying to combine the two. Uh, and I'm sure for my next talk I'll it'll be all about how the pen plotter was just a stepping stone to wherever I go next. Thank you.