Smear Frame

Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/s1784m92t

Abstract

For flute, clarinet in Bb, electric guitar, contrabass, and piano.

Program Note
A “smear frame” is a single frame in cel animation that portrays a full range of motion of a character or object, approximating a real-life motion blur. Since the smear frame moves by quite quickly in real time, many different artistic portrayals of the “smear” are possible, leading to lots of humorous, bizarre frames—with bloated body parts and absurd facial expressions—only really visible when the frame is viewed in isolation. Smear Frame takes inspiration from this animation technique by mashing up excerpts of traditional animation music styles (influenced by Carl Stalling’s Looney Tunes scores and music from the Associated Production Music Library as heard in SpongeBob SquarePants, in particular) and freezing, stretching, and blurring them throughout the piece.

Creator