How my stop motion went viral

Greetings and welcome to the first broadcast from Dropbear! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

What makes a video go viral? It's hard to predict the key ingredients but it happened to me and it kick-started my career as a stop motion animator and director. Back in 2011 I was asked to make an animated music video for indie folk musician Hudson and Troop. I had dabbled in stop motion but hadn't really had a chance to put my skills to the test and sink my teeth into a large project. I decided keep things simple and pick one object to animate. I wanted it to be really colourful so I ended up using a heap of coloured pencils, animating them in different formations and colour spectrums.

This sounded simple enough but once I began, it was a steep learning curve. There were many things that I wish I had known about stop motion before starting, so I guess I just learnt by trial and error. I made rookie mistakes such as animating with the curtains open which caused flicker in the animation, I animated at 25 frames per second! which made the process a whole lot longer (I didn't know about animating on 2s) Although it did make my animation look pretty smooth. However after hundreds of hours of painstakingly pushing pencils around a table I had a finished animated music video and it was time to release it to the world.

I didn't think that it would get much traction. Maybe a few hundred views, but to my surprise the fourth day after its release it had reached 500k views on Vimeo!!! It was super exciting watching the numbers grow and for my video to be featured on prominent sites such as Gizmodo, BoingBoing, and cartoonbrew. It helped that it got the coveted Vimeo Staff Pick which helped get it seen by a large audience. In the end Against the Grain has a combined view count of over 2.3 million views!

So why did my video go viral? Maybe it was the universal love of the pencil, or perhaps it was the types of visuals I decided to animate or maybe it was the right combination of music and visuals or was it just a bit of luck? In the end I don't really know.... I guess the take away is that if you have a great Idea that's executed well anything is possible.

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Since the blow-up of Against the Grain I've spent the last 11 years directing numerous high budget TV commercials, a huge variety of online content and other stop motion music videos for international recording artists.

I'm super excited to be releasing a stop motion animation online course early next year in which I'll be pouring my years of experience as an animator and director into. When I was starting out I wished I had a mentor and resource so I could get started in stop motion and to explain all the tips and tricks. So stay tuned to future broadcasts from Dropbear. In the meantime, if you're into stop motion, design and motion, keep striving to learn and create. I'm still learning new techniques and tricks each time I take on a new project.

As well as being a stop motion artist I'm also an illustrator and have a series of prints available for purchase through my store. This series is based on my love for retro technology and nostalgia so if you're interested in picking up an original Dropbear print head over to the store. Also great Christmas present ideas for that retro gaming relative or friend.

Bye for now

Dropbear ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

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59 Luscombe Street, Brunswick East, VIC 3057
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