Page Created: 09/06/19. Last Updated: 12/16/19.
C A MACFINN
Gooscap and the Baby: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8257064/?ref_=nm_knf_i1
The No Face Doll: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8234508/?ref_=nm_knf_i4
Raccoon Trouble: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8257436/?ref_=nm_knf_i2
Why the Nighthawk Has Such Beautiful Wings: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8243830/?ref_=nm_knf_i3
MEETING DETAIL
Meeting Date: November 8, 2019.
Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Attendance: 25.
Meeting Program: Slide Show / Q & A with Animator / Film Maker.
Official Site: https://camacfinn.com/
Internet Movie Data Base Page: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9748543/
Newsletter Account
The following account is reprinted from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2019 Philip J De Parto:
The November General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey on Saturday, November 9, 2019. Animator / Film Maker C A MacFinn spoke and showed short films.
Our speaker is a graduate of Fashion Institute of Technology and holds Bachelor of Arts in screenwriting and also in Computer Animation. He has taught animation and other courses at Rockland Community College and elsewhere. His films have played in over 40 film festivals. Conor draws on his Native American and Jewish heritage for most of his subject matter. His best known works are GOOSCAP AND THE BABY, THE NO FACE DOLL, RACCOON TROUBLE, WHY THE NIGHTHAWK HAS SUCH BEAUTIFUL WINGS, and DAVID AND GOLIATH.
DAVID AND GOLIATH, an animated retelling of the biblical story, is his best-known work, having been entered in numerous film festivals. He later used this short to illustrate the three act structure of film making with David encountering Goliath in Act One, running for his life in Act Two and stumbling, and using his sling to kill the giant in Act Three.
Three of the shorts were based on Native American myths and legends: THE NO FACE DOLL, WHY THE NIGHTHAWK HAS SUCH BEAUTIFUL WINGS, and GOOSCAP AND THE BABY. GOOSCAP has the best story and animation. A mighty hunter discovers a sleeping baby in the forest. The baby awakens and starts to cry. Nothing the fierce hunter does can make it stop crying. In desperation, he brings it home and hands it to a woman, who cradles and rocks the baby, who immediately stops crying.
RACCOON TROUBLE was Conor's FIT thesis project and deals with a raccoon who gets into a house and causes no end of trouble.
Our guest uses open source software to save money. Conor said Blender is a very good open software program. He also talked about the importance of music to a film. The first STAR WARS movie was considered boring when it was shown to a test audience without the musical score.
Audiences in different parts of the world have different tastes and expectations. For example, traditional 2 dimensional animation does well in Europe, but not in America, where 3 D animation is king.
Conor talked about a number of approaches to storytelling. In addition to the three act structure mentioned earlier, he talked about using the Dungeons & Dragons concept of alignment to develop a character, and showed a short about storytelling from Pixar.
Other topics included how shapes influence expectations, storyboards, unions, the rule of thirds, and fun bad movies like THE 300.
Our thanks to Conor and to everyone else who helped, especially Moshe.