Tyler Brennan
Cyril is a lonesome cockroach who has finally found a place to call home; an old woman’s freezer. Cyril spends his days feasting on the food left inside the freezer and gathering materials and items from around the house to make this freezer a home. This would become a stop motion mini series in which you follow Cyril and the mishaps and mayhem he gets up to.
In this project I set out to make a set and a puppet, both of which specifically designed for a stop motion. The freezer portrays an icy and frosty environment of a freezer that has not been looked after in years. The cockroach is to be a creepy but cute character with moveable limbs that can be replaced easily and a head that turns as well as antennae that can move freely. This allows for the cockroach to be handled by stop motion animators with ease and makes for a desirable animating experience. I also wanted to make sure the fridge was to be stocked with realistic looking food such as the chicken, prawns and peas.
During this project I managed to complete what I set out to do but not without any hardships. My main learning curve was creating Cyril. I had no idea how hard it would be to fabricate a puppet made specifically for stop motion, there are so many more details that go into it than I originally thought which made for a lot of delays in the schedule. Luckily for me Cyril was the hardest part to fabricate and I managed to create the rest of the freezer environment quickly and without hassle.
The realism of the food and the ice was something I was very worried about but once I began to make those and did testing etc. what I imagined was brought to life thankfully. Now after completing this project I have a new found love for stop motion and would love to keep pursuing it in the future.
This thesis aims to research cyborgs within film as a vessel for gender
ideologies reflected from societal norms. It also explores what it means to be a
cyborg in this day and age where technology is intrinsic to everything we do in
our daily lives and how that begins to affect our bodily autonomy. What defines
a cyborg and how? How does one draw the line between mecha and orga,
property and civilian? Using three characters for three different films, Blade
Runner (1982), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) and Titane (2021), they guide
the way through these complex cyborgian narratives to insightful truths about
gendered bodies. These films and characters are explored through the lens of
gender philosophers such as Donna Haraway and Judith Butler, to analyse what
these characters’ lives might tell us about our own preconceived notions of
gender and sex.
I am a Design for Film student disciplining in Modelmaking who has a keen interest in stop-motion, miniatures and organic props! I have spent my time at IADT honing my skills in these areas and more. I am very passionate about stop motion, storytelling and creating. In the future I would love to work more in stop-motion and develop my skills further in different areas. My academic interests also include gender studies in which I will be beginning a masters in starting September.
