Coming hot and heavy from those Turntablist at Skratchpiklz.com is an excerpt from a recent interview with the two men behind DJ QBert’s landmark Wave Twisters concept album. They are Syd Garon and Eric Henry and they make seriously bad ass animations ...SM:How did you guys get hooked on animation?SYD: I was hooked when I realized I could do it myself. You have a lot more control with the computer than you do on a film set. Traditional film ismore like a live performance, animation is like recording in the studio, I prefer the studio.EH: The Amiga 1000 got me hooked.SM: How did you guys link up with each other?SYD:I saw Eric’s film in a festival and it blew me away, when I tracked him down he coincidentally lived about 6 blocks away. I went over, said hi, told him the idea for WT and we’ve been partners ever since.SM: Where do your inspirations come from?SYD: I try to be influenced by as many things as possible, video games,comic books, movies, books, live music. Collaboration is also a great formof inspiration, one of us throws out an idea and the others improve it orcome up with something new based on the original idea.SM: Take us through the process of creating Wave Twisters?EH: When we start a new track, we re-read the liner notes from Wave twisters so that we have the broad outlines of the plot fresh in our minds. Then we coordinate with Doug and our growing team of 3D artists to see what drawings and backgrounds need to be created. Working from Doug’s rough sketches, we assemble an animatic which is essentially a rough draft of what will become the final animation. The animatic helps us to nail down the final timing, develop concepts, and gives us a skeleton which is fleshed out as we get final drawings from Doug, backgrounds from our 3D artists, and plug in more refined content of our own creation. During the making of the animatic, we listen to the track many, many times and interpret the scratches as actions which advance the story. Finally, we hand off certain scenes to Trish for character animation, lip sync, etc. and make final tweaks. SM: How familiar are both of you with skratching?SYD: Q-bert’s been giving us skratching lessons at his house and while I can tell the difference between a crab and a flare, I won’t be wearing any championship belts. SM: I’ve heard you guys bring some pretty interesting techniques to the table. Can you give us some descriptions of what you guys do that is different from other animators?SYD: We work in what we call 2 and a half D, as opposed to 2D or 3D. We combine stills, and 3D, in a collage picture sampling style that I think compliments Q-berts audio collage style perfectly. He has a beat he lays down then enhances with skratches.SM: Name your top 5 greatest pieces of work you’ve seen in animation? Why?SYD: 1) Yellow submarine. While its not the best movie ever, it’s a littleboring to be truthful, it shows what an animated musical could be. 2)Tetsuo. For setting the land speed record for stop motion animation, and forending with the words “gameover.”

3) Akira. Sets the standard.

4) The Simpsons. Still the best show on TV even after 8 or 9 years.

5) The Brothers Quay.SM: What’s next for the dynamic duo?SYD: We still have a year to go on this. I think I’ll worry about it then.EH: Word.