Caitlin McCarthy

posted by Robyn Pitts November 25, 2020

London-Based 2D Animator and Director, Caitlin McCarthy, studied Illustration at Camberwell, where she first began her foray into the creation of strange video art (a metre-wide silicone slice of ham, for instance). Today, she works as a director on commercials and videos for brands, alongside her personal projects.

Upon graduating and realising “oh yeah i did that course cause I like making pictures”, Caitlin started to draw more and experiment with 3D Animation. After meeting Parallel Teeth, she ended up switching over to 2D Animation when she collaborated on his music video for I’m Easy by Merk. Caitlin went on to work on a variety of projects for Parallel Teeth, Anna Ginsburg, and other directors at production company, Strange Beast, who supported her to make more of her own work, and eventually signed her up as a Director too.

Alongside the constant creation of “stupid little Gifs” to post on her Instagram in-between projects, Caitlin has been working on a short film, BREAKFAST, which was made in just over a week during the first COVID-19 lockdown; “with no planning, just to see how quick I could make a film”. Currently, she is also working on her first ever comic; “I am so used to working with moving image, that it can be really intimidating to try to get everything perfect in one single still”. She says; “A lot of my work is sort of half-autobiographical, I take a bad experience/aspect of my personality and blow it out of proportion until it’s funny, which I guess is a therapeutic thing for me”.

Her work is hugely inspired by movies, in particular those of Todd Solondz; “they’re often quite debauched and depressing in storyline, but bright and cheery aesthetically”. As a child, with a “tacky shopping centre” not far from the home she grew up in, Caitlin collected cheap hair clips and robotic toys as a form of entertainment. This experience continues to influence her work today, with plasticy colours and cutesy drawings a characterising feature of her aesthetic. She further comments; “The internet is also a major source of inspiration. Obsession itself is a bit of an obsession for me, and there are so many hyper-specific subcultures online that are fascinating to look into”.

Once she has a brief or idea for a project, Caitlin usually starts with “really basic ugly doodling and notes”. Her next step is usually character design; “That’s my favourite bit so I like to tie down what the characters will look like first”. She then creates an animatic; a storyboard that’s been timed out, and once all the shots have been planned, she’ll make style frames for each of them. “A style frame is like a snapshot of what the finished animation will look like, so this is when I decide on a colour palette for the piece, and what sort of textures I’m going to use” explains Caitlin. Once the design phase is done, she gets on with the long old slog of animating, and colours everything frame by frame. “On commercial projects, I’ll usually work with a crew of animators and colourists who are super skilled so we get the best looking result for a client; but I usually work alone on personal projects. I like breaking animation rules and just doing things kind of slap-dash” states the animator.

Although it’s not the the ideal setup for animation, Caitlin creates her works in Photoshop, using the Animator’s Toolbar extension by Patrick Deen to make it a little friendlier. “I do like that it doesn’t have any built in animation presets, so you’re forced to do things properly frame-by-frame, no cheating, and that makes the animation look more natural and hand-made” comments Caitlin. It is for the same reason she colours everything in by hand; “I think it’s sort of funny that I lengthen the process for the expressed purpose of making it look worse (or at least less smooth) but that’s how I like it”. She also uses a Wacom Cintiq rather than a tablet to draw, “…cause it’s a little more like drawing on paper”.

Caitlin’s ultimate dream is to work on a music video; “It’s like a rites of passage for animators that I still haven’t achieved”, and we’re excited to see the short film she’s hoping to soon realise “about a bowling alley and a home made sex/voodoo doll”.