Henry's Garden
August 20th, 2003
There is a monster out there...who likes flowers.
Yes, Henry's Garden is the story of a monster who loves flowers, but it's also the tale of a character witnessing sad changes in his environment. It's a tale of joy, loss, hope and the enduring power of nature.
The idea for Henry's Garden is loosely based upon a multi-media series about the environment created by Moon Seun and Kevin Geiger in 1990. This series of work dealt with the encroachment of the synthetic at the expense of the natural world. The concepts and aesthetics expressed in the series would influence the content of Henry's Garden ten years later.
The film is currently in circulation on the international film festival circuit, and just can't seem to stop winning awards. The website at Simplistic Pictures has a lot of screenshots from the film, and Henry's Garden is also available on DVD.
"The tale of Henry's Garden was originally conceived as an illustrated children's book. The seminal image of what would become Henry was a sketch of a shadowy monster with a Cheshire grin and a flower on his head. As our story took shape around the notion of a monster who loves flowers and the changing world which confronts him, we decided to produce Henry's Garden as an animated short film in order to explore the emotional content within a more dynamic genre. Ironically, now that Henry's Garden is complete we are in the midst of producing a children's book adaptation of the film.
A variety of reference materials were considered when determining the overall look of Henry's Garden. The aim was to work with an aesthetic language not normally associated with computer animation. The bleeds, halos and blown out tonal values characteristic of old photographs and black and white films such as Metropolis and Frankenstein were a primary influence, as were the bold graphic qualities of Japanese anime such as Lain and the whimsical illustrations of artists like Lisbeth Zwerger. Throughout, we sought to establish neither realism nor caricature, but rather a stylized naturalism.
Initially portrayed as a mysterious, shadowy creature with a broad smile, Henry began to acquire more human qualities over the course of the character design process. Henry's physical appearance was explored through a variety of sketches, and finding the right balance of imposing bulk and childlike innocence took some time. It was important that Henry neither look too human nor too monstrous, too adult nor too juvenile, too scary nor too comical. Above all, Henry had to be possessed of an inherent gentleness and a common appeal. The goal was to create an empathetic character within the computer.
Over the course of the project, we watched our home studio grow from a lowly iMac to a network of more than 6 PCs, as our savings shrank and our dog happily chewed through cable after cable. From first draft to film out, producing Henry's Garden required resources and resourcefulness. Access to hardware, software and post-production services was achieved by coupling out-of-pocket expenses with a few key professional favors.
It was a grueling learning experience, and the rewards were hard-won, but the dirty laundry makes for entertaining anecdotes during speaking engagements." |
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