Behind The Scene: Timmy Fisher

Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 10-Mar-08 @ 05:02 PM

Throughout the past 10 years, artist/co-founder TIMMY FISHER has been creating some of the most captivating motion graphics this side of a MacBook Pro with his buds in MK12. The company has used their crazy computer and graphic design skills to make videos for the Faint, promos for MTV's The Osbournes and, at long last, MK12's live-action History Of America. What is the world coming to? We talked to Fisher and found out.

What are "motion graphics"?
"Motion graphics" is a weird catch all term for still graphical elements giving the appearance of movement and/or change, usually through various animation techniques and displayed on video, film or projection. Film titles are usually a good example of the form.

There's a super-interesting featurette in the DVD extras for Stranger Than Fiction that talks about how MK12 did the special effects for the film. For those who haven't watched it, can you explain the creative process?
We were asked to visualize the OCD-esque, complex thoughts, choices, routines, habits and patterns of the main character in the film, Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), who is a very lonely IRS agent. We came up with a personal GUI (graphical user interface) of sorts for the character that visually explained what Harold was doing or going through, in real time, as he went about his day. It was as if the character was projecting his thoughts and decisions and general thinking patterns into the actual space he was physically in.

The graphics reflected light, cast shadows and held to the camera's depth of field as if they were physically on set during filming. We went through quite a long design process to come up with something that everybody dug, but once we did, we were given footage-big 2K digital files-and we tracked all of these elements in, adding lighting and compositing to make the effect seamless with the live action footage.

Perhaps your biggest project to date is MK12's History Of America.
Four years ago, we had finished this short film called Ultralove Ninja. George Bush Jr. had just stepped into office, and things were very fucking weird. At the time, we were watching quite a few [Sergio] Leone films and wondering what the fuck was happening to America. We had also been talking about moving back toward a narrative-driven short, something we hadn't touched upon since the early days of MK12. One of the first official MK12 pieces was Man Of Action!: The Terrible Cosmic Death, which dealt with this character Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America, who was this super spy character that we had created, fighting evil clown villains for the good of mankind. It had been the last time we had dealt internally with a completely narrative film, so it was collectively thought that we needed to return to that type of storytelling. Thus, History Of America was put into production.

The spaghetti Western genre was a very heavy influence. The editing pace and overdubbing all stem from that genre of filmmaking. Stylistically, it feels like a moving watercolor painting, but it's primarily live-action based. All of it was shot on green screen with matte paintings and 3-D environments. Production was effectively six to eight months, but it took four years to find the extra time to actually complete it. It's the longest short film we've made, at just over 30 minutes: It's a labor of love, if you will. We call it our psychedelic western space opera.

What advice do you have for those looking to break into the field of motion graphics?
Don't just limit yourself to a computer: Draw, paint, photograph, film, print, collect, collage, perform, et al. It all matters in the end. Create as much as you can, no matter what medium or form you're working in. Isn't that the whole point of it all? It would be a boring reality if we didn't have the ability to create new things. -Leslie Simon

MK12's History Of America can be viewed at historyofamerica.tv. For more information on MK12, visit mk12.com.