Faliat
From Anipedia
| General Information | |
| |
|---|---|
| Real name: | Laura Jayne "LJ" Syme |
| Age: | 18 |
| Alternative Handle: | Ketoik, Kahunaxi, ReaperDoubleX, ReaperBorgDoubleEx, Xybax, Snakes, Spanner Watanabe, Aspsetter |
| Links | |
| Newgrounds | |
| DeviantART | SheezyART |
| Cartoons | |
LJ "Faliat" Syme is a flash animator, comic artist, aspiring musician, voice actress, film director and writer from Clydebank, Scotland.
Contents |
[edit] Pre-Flash Work
Back in 1993 she had already developed a keen interest in animation, but unlike other four year olds, it was more to do with the actual process of making a movie from pictures.
She already knew they were moving pictures, because not too long before her dad had bought her a dinosaur flip-book from the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow and had explained it to her. The flip-book depicted an Allosaurus chasing a smaller dinosaur and it barely escaping it's jaws, while a volcano erupted in the background and a Pteranadon flew about in circles.
Faliat would later try to make her own flip-books, but they failed miserably due to bad construction (AKA, Weak tape and complete A4 sheets of paper.) so she switched for a while to making regular books and drawing pictures in them and speaking the stories of the characters.(She was hyperlexic. But wasn't taught how to write because her parents didn't want her too advanced in her first year of school).
[edit] Toymovies
Three years later, she would get a hold of her dad's video camera and make movies in her bedroom with her toys. Mainly Sylvanian Families because they were the easiest to pose. The animation capability was the main reason she started buying them en-masse. And joined the club to get the catalogue so she could see the new stuff as it came out. Even though most of the stuff was too old-fashioned and she decided to use other toys instead as substitutes for things she couldn't get.
[edit] Stop Frame Movie Quality
The early animations were slapstick comedy or horror and included slightly surreal situations, such as a child falling in the ocean and being rescued by an orca commanded by another kid on board, who then goes to swim off with the orca and wave to the camera. Another animation had a random smurf in it. But most of the animations included people getting killed or injured, either in car crashes or being attacked by zoo animals.
Most of the films were silent. Some were filmed to include dialogue later on, however it was never added. Attempts at making dialogue included shouting out syllables when the camera took a frame. However it all just became jumbled up.
In 1997, Faliat's dad introduced her to the works of Joe Cartoon. And she became curious as to what program made these works she found so funny because of the crazy gerbils and the frog in the blender. She wouldn't find out until much later.
In 2001, she joined forces with her younger sister (Lolomech/Lolomecha) to create another un-named Sylvanian Families animation, however, this also included Lolomech's DragonBall Z action figures. It involved very un-funny muddled and high-pitched dialogue and was pretty much the product of two obviously hyperactive children. The movie was made up as it went along. Due to conflicting creativity (And several times during the frozen dialogue scenes, arguments would be heard behind the camera.) The storyline took place on a moon (Lolomech's bedroom floor at the time.) where Gohan and Trunks meet the strange felt-clad inhabitants. Who are worried the fan that is generating a false atmosphere to keep them living there, is nearly exploding and needs fixing. However, a gang of space pirates crash land on the moon in their well designed spaceship (A white cardboard shoebox with a slit cut in it and "Spaceship" drawn on the side in green pen.) and decide to take the Moon-Base Trunks got as a birthday present, or else they will take the fan and kill everyone. Dialogue ensues until the brother of the space pirate leader pops out of nowhere and shouts the line which would make people watching the film think Faliat was on drugs: "I am BADEN! The cloud being... And I am BEING... a cloud being... And I am BEING... a cloud..."
The character is dressed in cotton wool and has shiny-backed gum-wrapper for a hat and has a bad irish accent. This was one of the ONLY times Faliat made one of the costumes for her Sylvanians in films (The felt suite were made by her mother). Even though she had a desire to do it more often, there was usually not enough time. This usually resulted in the the characters either being naked, in their original clothing, or in clothes borrowed from other Sylvanians, Child Barbies, or the cheap copies of Sylvanian families known as "Forest Families" that could only move their heads and their heads would fall off easily.
The 2001 film is Faliat's least favourite movie production due to to it becoming a chore later on in production due to her sister's heavy demands that she be included. Her only favourite moments in it are the arrivals of the space pirates and the introduction of the space pirate leader's brother, the cloud-being. She also greatly dislikes it because it was a "Sucky Film" and vowed to never make such a bad film again unintentionally.
She did, however, enjoy filming "Super Rabbit" shortly afterward. A short silent film involving some children falling out of a ferris wheel and Barbie trying to save them, only to crash into a radiator and die (Unintentionally similar to the demise of Faliat's uncle.). Later on, the children are still hanging, and a Clark Kent-like Rabbit comes into view. Wearing a pair of blue-glasses. She takes the glasses off and sprouts a giant red dress (Obviously from a barbie) and flies to save the children. But buy the time she get's there she only manages to save one. The other one falls to the ground and a scared fairground operator runs up to the kid. Only to realise that it is unharmed. He then stops caring and walks off. Supposedly for a beer
The last toy movie Faliat made wasn't that long afterward. And it didn't include dialogue and was left unfinished.
She no longer makes these movies because of her paranoia that Eddie, the family dog, will eat the cast (Having already chewed up an otter and nearly doing the same to a raccoon). As well as not being able to find a suitable place to film without being disturbed.
In 2003 "Santa" got Faliat a copy of Paint Shop Pro 8 with Animation Shop 3 included. So she began animating short things on it. And even attempted to make a movie in 2004. However, the movie was lost in production and all that was left was an image of a bleeding eye and the credits.
[edit] 2004
This year, Faliat received a copy of Flash MX 2004 from her parents for christmas. They wanted to keep it a secret, by disguising the demo version with the full version. Faliat fell for this disguise, until she discovered the packaging... But decided not to open it until christmas.
[edit] Deviantart
Faliat joined DA in this year. but it would take a while before she would get enough know-how of flash to start work on her first flashes in the following months.
[edit] 2005
The first flash animation she completed was an image on an alien eye blinking amongst foliage. It was a simple production that had taken two hours to complete despite Faliat's lack of knowledge of onion skinning and tweening.
This was the year she would join Sheezyart, where she would gain the most watchers and make it to the front page several times with flash works the following year.
She created one of her favourite animations as a pre-trailer for another animation which failed to become completed due to lack of people coming forward for voices. This was also a failed inclusion into the "Are Fun" craze. The animation was of a prawn that rises from it's grave (comically misspelled "Graev") that loves to rave. and kills it's enemies through the act of raving. In this animation, it goes against Robot Wars House Robot, Sgt. Bash. Resulting in Sgt. Bash vanishing with text saying "Pop!" due to Faliat not being able to find an explosion gif. The animation this was a pretrailer for what was work on a storyline merging the character of Keo from Mahlaste with Bogswallop's flying pig, Bacon in one storyline.
Several other animations produced in that year were attempts at developing the characters for her long-developed storyline, Mahlaste. In this year it underwent heavy delevopment. Going from a black comedy to drama/horror series within a matter of months.
In this year, Faliat also tried to become part of the Lock Legion forums. However, she didn't receive her confirmation E-mail. Possibly due to the selected name, despite it's intentions being relatively harmless.
[edit] Really Evil Christmas Elves
Later in this Year, Faliat began development on a new story and characters abbreviated to R.E.C.E'. This was supposed to be created for Christmas, but not enough people came forward for voices. She decided to continue working on it for another year.
[edit] 2005 Works
First Flash Sheezyart Flash ID 1 Raving Zombie Prawns Are Fun Kat (Keo) Vs the Flying Pig (Bacon) Lighting Test Sheezyart Flash ID 2 Short Tweening Test Flash Animation made for a friend of Faliat's who was a Christian Death fan Another attempted trailer for Kat Vs Bacon. Keo makes a change into albinism Sheezyart Flash ID 3 Design of Faliat's Lock Legion Flash Character A Test of Keo walking through snow with a scrolling background and looped music Keo undergoing further testing
[edit] 2006
This is the year Faliat published the most flashes. Despite a lot of previous stuff being lost forever. Including her earliest work which wasn't uploaded to the internet by that time.
On Sheezyart, she hit the front page for the first time with the "Mr Blobby Flash" for a competition and gained second place despite not using the given template due to software conflicts.
A few months later she was up there again with "Flirting Paradise Insanity". her first and only sprite movie. Faliat never wants to make another Naruto sprite movie again. Due to the project overshadowing all other works she had for a few more months until she made her more faved work to date. Which she later made into a YTMND site. A scene from Naruto with Sasuke and Orichimaru fighting became Sasuke and orichimaru dancing to the Nutcracker suite with Sasuke in an added tutu.
[edit] Pretty Things Die Quicker
In February of this year, Faliat began development on yet another Flash-Series storyline. One described by some people she has told some of it to as "Japanese X-Men".
The project is still at the stage of recruiting a voice cast. And unlike RECE, will not go into comic form to do so.
PTDQ is currently the only project Faliat is working on that is mostly set in near-future Japan.
