Using Donald Trump soundbites as source material, London-based Cub Studio launched an ongoing series of short animations lampooning the Republican candidate on the #TRUMPFACTS website.
Like a lot of Cub’s work, the videos sport snappy 2D character animation laced with heaps of humor. In order to pump out videos quickly and respond to new soundbites — and you know there will be new soundbites — Cub crafted a workflow that allows them to turn around a completed animation in about 90 minutes, start to finish.
Wait, 90 minutes?!
Director and Cub co-founder Fraser Davidson explains how.
Q&A with Cub Studio’s Fraser Davidson
Would you consider yourself a political person?
Yes, I think so. I’m not a member of any particular party, although I’m probably to the left of most people in US.
To be honest, I have a real sympathy with the people who aren’t big Clinton fans. I’m not greatly impressed by her and she has proven to be the perfect counterpoint to a ‘non-establishment’ candidate like Trump.
Having said that, aside from the bluff and bluster of the Trump campaign and the man himself, there is a cold streak of old fashioned demagoguery about him. Obviously, much of what he says is fairly outrageous, but it also seem ill-conceived and capricious.
I could bang on, but in all honesty, he scares the shit out of me.
In an ideal world, what do you hope to achieve with these animations?
Hmmm. Good question… It seems almost impossible to effectively satirize the man. We just wanted to create a humorous presentation of Trump “in his own words.”
Perhaps eventually, one or two of these soundbites might persuade someone on the fence. But at the same time, these shorts have very little editorial voice to them. These are things he actually said.
If you aren’t convinced that a man who said he would ‘date’ his own kid if they weren’t related isn’t fit to lead the free world, I’m probably not going to convince you.
Is it true that you’ve achieved a 90-minute turnaround for these animations?
Yes, now that the rig is complete, the process, from grabbing the sound bite, to animating the mouth to adding a little animation using both Duik and Joysticks ‘n Sliders is down to 90 minutes. The rig itself and the initial design took less than a day.
He’s pretty rudimentary in design terms, but with some of today’s great tools, we can turn these around very quickly. Here are a few gifs showing different elements of the rig deconstructed.
Are you hoping to do more of this quick turnaround work in the future?
Oh, we have enough for one a day till the end of the week. We have another week’s worth of suggestions kindly submitted through the website. We definitely expect more great source material from the Donald, and with the pace of creation, reckon we can get these turned around quickly going forward.
Outside of the project itself, yes — this is a proof of concept. We wanted to see what we could do with particular tools in a hurry. In our experience, such research is rarely wasted and very often gets recycled into commercial work.
Links
- #TRUMPFACTS website
- Cub Studio
- Duik for After Effects (rigging tool set)
- Joysticks ‘n Sliders for After Effects
Credits
Director: Fraser Davidson
Producer: Ben Skinner
Sound Designer: Morgan Samuel
Production Company: SOCIETY