|
Salad Fingers is a green man who lives on his own in a desolate
shack in the middle of nowhere. He enjoys the feeling of different
textures against his skin. I originally told people that if
they want to know what he's about and where he came from then
they should try and work it out from the stuff that he says
and what can be seen lying around in the background --this is
where people started playing detective so someone set up a site
called the Salad Fingers Thesis with lots of very silly theories. |
| Semantikon:
Discuss your disclaimer “These may upset children and
the elderly…” |
| David
Firth:
If I was a child I'd be upset, and if I was elderly I'd probably
write in and complain. Elderly people like to moan. |
| Semantikon:
What influences helped define the salad fingers storyline and
cast of characters (literary, musical, cultural)? |
| David
Firth:
Very old children's books are quite inspirational...also whenever
I listened to Boards
Of Canada I got floods of Ideas, as well as that, the films
of David
Lynch, South
Park, Tim
Burton, the League
Of Gentlemen and Chris
Morris. |
| Semantikon:
In previewing salad fingers to a small sample of our audience
and semantikon volunteers, we found people described Salad Fingers
in terms aligned more closely with the comic book. As the animation
style of filmmaking is not just cartoons---did you set out to
make a “comic” or “cartoon”? Discuss
the decision. |
| David
Firth:
I don't really read comics to be honest, I guess it's the wobbly
writing that made people say that, but I only added that so
I didn't have to explain to Americans what I was saying....maybe
that and the fact that he doesn't move a lot, but that's just
laziness. |
| Semantikon:
Salad Fingers is produced utilizing Flash, a vector based key
frame animation tool that outputs media rich films that are
small in file size. In your experience, how have internet based
mediums (including flash) shaped audience expectations of film,
the filmmaker, and, the story telling? |
| David
Firth:
I always hated flash films, they didn't ever move me at all,
I hated the low frame rate and I hated the fact they always
seemed to be unfunny computer game parodies or digs at Metallica
and Eminem. So I guess that's all I ever expected to see when
I clicked on a flash film. I avoided flash for ages but no one
wanted to spend 25 minutes downloading an AVI. I guess people
expect a flash movie to make it's point in around 1-3 minutes,
maybe they expect to laugh or see some cool violence all rounded
off with either a punchline or an ending, so I made sure that
with episode 1 they got none of those ingredients and as I expected
it got ignored and mocked. |
| Semantikon:
You moved away from traditional frame based movie making in
previous works to Flash. How has this decision affected your
production cycle? Story telling? Making the works more widely
available? |
| David
Firth:
I can get episodes done much quicker and post them on newgrounds.
I went from having a fan base of about 200 to about 100,000. |
| Semantikon:
You’ve sampled from bands like Sigur
Ros, Aphex
Twin and Boards
of Canada in your audio design for the salad fingers. The
choice in what to sample having its very own connotations, what
guides the selection of audio tracks that help shape the salad
fingers storyline and envrionment? |
| David
Firth:
Music is very important. It's usually more of a case of "what
animation could I fit to this song?" rather than "what
song could I fit to this animation?" Music emphasises emotion
and I like to think that i have always used that to my advantage. |
| Semantikon:
Now that Salad Fingers #4 has been released, How do we get a
new episode? (Software, Music, Voice Over, Brief step-through
of the creation.) |
10
steps to Salad Fingers
1. We sit and think of ideas, usually a brief synopsis
(we usually think of 2 episodes
per brain storm)
2. I write it up adding most of the dialogue and decide on the
music
3. I story board really roughly
4. I draw all the backgrounds in flash and separate into scenes
5 I do all the voices about 5 times and cut them up into sentences
(sound forge)
6. I do the majority of the animation
7. I watch it through and hate it so I add some new scenes
8. Then it's the lip sync (so annoying)
9. And then the wobbly writing (equally annoying)
10. I stick it on newgrounds
|
| Semantikon:
The voice talent for the salad fingers character is a mix of
a brooding gimp and a gentle grandma before she sets the cat
on fire. How did arrive at the voice for Salad Fingers? In the
script and rehearsal process, what do to work out the vocal
nuances that shed light on the character? |
David
Firth:
I just thought of a pathetic voice that sounded innocent at
the same time and that's what I came up with. There is no rehearsal,
I just say it straight into the mic. When we are coming up with
ideas we all pitch ideas for things he might say in his voice,
so then we know if a certain line
works or not. |
| Semantikon:
You’ve produced salad fingers by soliciting donations,
selling t-shirts and baby outfits. You’ve not chosen to
sell Salad Fingers episodes, making it available to whoever
wants it, essentially, freeware. Discuss the choice to distribute
salad fingers for free and your experiences selling the image
of Salad Fingers. |
| David
Firth:There
haven't been very many donations at all and I still haven't
received a penny from the t-shirt company. Everything on the
internet is free, so why should my cartoon be any different?
If they got on TV then I'd expect some money but they'd still
be available for free on my site. Artists are not artists if
they care more about money than being appreciated. |
