In class on March 25th, I was pleasantly reminded of an aspect of Baby Snakes that I had forgotten to mention in my last blog—the animation by Bruce Bickford. Upon rewatching the video clips in class, it seemed a ridiculous oversight on my part given that the imagery created by Bickford for the film, was probably my favorite aspect of the movie. Bickford’s work is both incredibly meticulous as well as full of awesome movement. His images are rich with texture, colour and invention. These factors in combination with his talent for accurately capturing a sense of nuanced character through movement made the animation hypnotizing. I was moved to rewind and rewatch many of the sequences and wished I knew how to get my DVD player to play in slow motion!

Bickford’s talent for portraying movement and consequently character, was particularly evident in his depiction of Zappa as a clay figure. “Clay Zappa’s” hand motions were done in a way that seemed uncanny to me in the way they represented the real Zappa’s with such accuracy. Upon seeing this, I was moved to think of the way Bickford’s ability in this regard was able to facilitate a type of feeling or essence in his more abstract animation.

My opinion of Bickford in the film was quite bland at first. Even though his work fascinated me, he seemed unremarkable; if not entirely boring. When Zappa is interviewing him about what his art meant to him, his responses were lacking in intrigue but my respect for him picked up when Zappa asked him what the meaning behind the extension of noses into other forms and shapes was. His response was simply, “The nose is easily animated”. I thought it was cool how Bickford was honest about the fact that there was no profound meaning behind everything but rather some things just look cool. Although there are common elements that I suspect were consciously animated to provoke feelings pertaining to the grotesque, perverse, imaginative and comical, I give props to anyone who puts extensive effort into a project just because they want to see something cool. Like Zappa—who has often said the only reason he made music was because he wanted to hear what he heard in his head aloud—Bickford struck me as an artist whose reason for creation was self-motivated. I love this quality in an artist. I think the objective for a project comes through in the work and therefore the art produced by people whose goals are centered around money, fame—or whatever other external motivating factors—is compromised. Sincerity in this sense, affects the creative process. A labour of love is always more captivating than labour-sans-love.

Perhaps this is why Frank seemed to have so much respect for Bickford. Zappa encouraged people to make conscious decisions for their own reasons and I bet he was perceptive to this admirable quality in Bruce. It’s hard to find people who follow their hearts and are cool because of it.

On that note, Chad VanGaalen is pretty much my love of life and I suspect he’s got some Bruce Bickford, Zappa-esque qualities in him. He is a musician and artist who has done his own animation for his videos and some for various other bands as well. Not only is his music SPECTACULAR, but his animation is very close to equally impressive. The style is similar to Bickford’s at times in the way that shapes morph into one another, creating fluid torrents of mutating body parts and mystical formations.

Check out: Flower Gardens, Red Hot Drops and Clinically Dead. One minute and forty-five seconds into Clinically Dead, VanGaalen’s black and white visual narrative potently resembles some of Bickford’s work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58rP44NSNNs Clinically Dead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKYeCWfXSro Flower Gardens

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5CwHXPp4rU Red Hot Drops

One last thought: I could not help but think of Disney’s Fantasia during Baby Snakes. As a child (and still to this day, actually) I have never been much of a classical music fan. Save one exception: Beethoven's Fur Elise—and not because my name is in the title. I distinctly remember falling asleep when my mother took my brother and I to the symphony on a number of occasions and yet Fantasia was always a movie I liked. Of course I can only surmise why that was, but it seems likely that my perception was heightened, thereby elongating my attention span with the combination of music and visuals. It’s simply more exciting. The combo makes music a more accessible medium; and everyone knows that Frank was all about that.

Goodbye now!