Karen is currently producing an animation called The Vampire Captain.
The storyboard features in her book Pre-Animate! The
Essential Guidebook for independent Animators and has
original characters
drawn by
the talented animator and illustrator XO Hung.
Karen, with her links to various animation houses in Asia, is seeking to produce it as an animated feature.
Here is the story:
Mr Robinson holds a head waiter position, known as a 'captain', in a Chinese restaurant. He died, became a ghost and because of his tuxedo uniform and the fact that he is 'undead' he is convinced he is a vampire!
Two savvy street kids find it their mission to convince him to face his past and help him find eternal peace.
The storyboards from the animation have been scanned and set to a soundtrack with dialogue and sound effects.
© Karen McCann and XO Hung, 2005.
For more information on the book, including the table of contents see:
The PreAnimate information page.
You can also visit the Preanimate.com website (external link).
In 2005 Karen was commissioned by documentary film maker Dr Louisa Wei to create some animations for her latest work. Dr Wei wanted to enliven the documentary and break up the series of interviews she had conducted with a small series of simple films each only 10 seconds or so long.
Two of the animations are 3D Maya simulations of Mao badges. The rest are 2D collage animations.
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Karen was also commissioned to create animations and Mao collage illustrations for a related project.
To see the full sequence of 'Mao Happy Baby' images click on this Mao Illustrations link.
Photo-manipulation and collage are Karen's current interests in illustrative technique. Her recent illustrations are on this page:
The images above are from early computer animations made in 1995 and 1997.
Pre-1997 Karen worked on low-polygon models and animation for a Virtual Reality (VR) installation as part of the Discovery Centre at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The work was done at the Australian National University's Vizlab. See also the EDM studio website.