M Dot Strange at Cinequest

I shot the clip above at the South First Friday art event that coincided with the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose last Friday. Animator M Dot Strange (aka Micheal Belmont) was the featured artist at Gallery Anno Domini, and the props, sets and apparati from his film We Are The Strange--which was playing at Cinequest as it had at Sundance earlier-- were on display along with the works of a few other artists. M Dot also had his PowerBook hooked up to a video camera and projector and encouraged people to make claymation shorts which all rolled up into the clip above. Using a $40 program called iStop Motion, M Dot would have the volunteer animators pose their creations and then digitized each movement frame-by-frame into the computer. It was quite fun to watch--especially the tipsy people.

I went to the Apple Store on Sunday and picked up iStop Motion. As if I needed another way to waste time!