Interview with C Spencer Yeh musician & animator of Deerhoofs latest video “Buck and Judy” from their latest record Offend Maggie out on Kill Rock Stars:

♥How did Deerhoof first approach you to do this video?

The short of it is that I had been friends with members (both past and
present) of Deerhoof for a while, just a lot of synchroncities.  For
their new record they were inviting a variety of friends to create
videos for every song.  Marisa from Four Paws Media, who does press
for them, was also working with this band I have Burning Star Core at
the time, and had made the initial connection to make it happen.

♥Did you come up with an idea or was it more of a collaborative effort?

I came up with the idea, but it was definitely based on the music, as
well as personal interests and aesthetic intersections I anticipated
based on my knowledge and relationship with them and the Deerhoof
canon.  So, in a way collaborative, using their “mythology” to
springboard off of and explore manifestations of my own.  I told
myself I’d animate the whole thing, but of course flash-forward months
and months later closer to the deadline, juggling multiple projects
along with this one.  Yikes!

Performance @ Amoeba Berkeley Photo by mtt-r

♥When did you start animating?  Did you go to school for it?

As a kid I would mess around with crude stop motion and flipbooks, but
for computer animation I started on Hypercard (if anyone remembers
that program) — just cutting and pasting  and drawing etc. — no
tweening or keyframes as we know of them today.  I’d very much just
create in an “improvisatory” manner, extending and animating these
loose narratives and seeing where they’d go.  For “Buck and Judy” I
still ended up doing a bunch of it “longhand” for whatever reason –
even though parts were planned out and storyboarded ahead of time, I
still wanted to leave room for very last-minute decisions on imagery
and motion, to change the direction of the whole at any time.  I know
more and more there are pretty complex tools to automate supposedly
naturalistic motion.  As an aside, I remember reading about this
software to simulate “realistic” animated mass hand-to-hand combat
that was developed for the “Lord of the Rings” movies.  I find this
absolutely fascinating — the idea of artificial intelligence, even
with a seemingly infinite combination of variables, still now only
within a defined array of possibilities .  Reminds me also of that
program “Eliza,” the virtual psychologist.  For college I majored in
“radio/television/film”; the program touched upon a wide range of both
conceptual and practical approaches towards various mediums, but I
actually ended up focusing on film history and theory.

♥Where can we see more of your work?

Right now there isn’t much that’s out there in terms of
video/animation that strictly stands on its own.  A lot of work had
been incorporated into these larger personal projects — or just sit
incomplete/fragmentary.  As for video work overall, I have some pieces
that will be screened later this year in conjunction with various
events at art centers/museums, as well as installations.  These are
more intersections between sound and video art, a bit more serious I
guess.  I can’t talk about them right now unfortunately because they
aren’t 100% publicized yet.  So, you know, in the meantime maybe some
random stuff will pop up on Youtube or Vimeo.  “Buck and Judy” really
reawakened some urge to play more in this mode — maybe best keep as
simple and steady as possible for now.  I tend to trip myself up/get
caught up in too many “concerns.”

C Spencer Yeh lives in Cincinatti, Ohio and is  on tour this April for more info go to www.myspace.com/cspenceryeh

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