Dragon.Love
Calgary, 2010
2:24
Dir: Haleigh Toney
Digital Stills of Hand Drawings
Animated Comedy
Young Audiences Program
This humorous revision of the myth of the knight-errant starts in typical storybook fashion and quickly takes an unexpected turn. Perhaps Dragon.Love is meant as a modern-minded demonstration of the virtues of negotiation over the evils of violent coercion.
Or maybe it’s just a new take on the triumph of love. In either case, Dragon.Love’s graphic novel approach to animation is in keeping with its satiric tone. It’s also a reminder that while we tend to think of film – and often refer to it – as a moving or motion picture, it’s essentially about using photography (or composition) and montage to create a time-based structure, in this case a conventional narrative. Haleigh Toney created her fairy tale over a period of approximately three weeks. She spent a full half of that time animating the first nine seconds during which the knight trots through the forest on his horse – the sequence involving the longest continuous motion in the piece. The remaining two-and-a-half minutes is made up of more or less static images cut together to tell a story with the help of captioned dialogue. In all, Toney made about five hundred drawings on sheets of regular printing paper. She then photographed them with a digital camera, processed them in Photoshop, and put the whole sequence together using Adobe AfterEffects and iMovie HD.
HALEIGH TONEY
Haleigh Toney is a young animator/storyteller who lives in the windy city of Calgary, Alberta. A recent graduate of the Alberta College of Art and Design, she spends her time hunting down fantastical tales of monsters, romance, awkward conversations and unexpected consequences. She is a big fan of classical animation, and often uses a combination of hand-drawn techniques and digital programs such as Photoshop and Adobe After Effects to create her films.
When she is not animating, she spends her time seeking inspiration while reading, watching cartoons and playing video games.
