Advertisement Feature

To celebrate 18 years of Lynx Africa, 18 artists have been commissioned to produce original artwork inspired by Africa, to be hosted daily on Lynx’s Tumblr page.

Amongst those contributing to the campaign are graffiti talent INSA, Is Tropical’s Simon Milner, Major Lazer art director Ferry Gouw [above] and young director Natalia Stuyk, who has made videos for The Mae Shi, Roses Gabor, Slackk and more.

FACT spoke to Natalia Stuyk to find out a little more about the campaign and her contribution to it, Watermelons [below right].

Tell us how you got into animating. 

I was supposed to study astrophysics, but I chose animation because it was closest thing to it on the list of things to study. I loved physics, but then I panicked at the last minute and chose the nearest thing on the list instead.

I studied visual communication at Edinburgh College of Art, and then I did a masters in Interactive Media.

Were you doing independent stuff on the side?

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I worked at the UN in New York after uni, I thought I wanted to work in the public sector but that got really boring really quickly, so then I went to work in advertising… then that got really boring really quickly. Eventually I realised I could work on something that made me happy for a living, and I became freelance around a year ago.

I approached this music video director called Ollie Evans, who really helped me. He did that recent Zomby short film, he’s an amazing director. I asked him for loads of advice, and he gave me a kind of ‘how to’ for how to be a video director. He put me in touch with OB Management which is how I ended up doing the Roses Gabor video. That was the first commission that I ever got – that was a year and a month ago today.

Before that I did stuff for friends of friends. I did Slackk [‘Blue Sleet’], which is my favourite video I’ve done, because it was the only time I’ve done 3D animation, and it was so much fun… it’s the only video that’s come out exactly how I envisioned it in my head.

You did the Mae Shi one, too.

I did the Mai Shi when I was 21, and I won a BAFTA [laughs]. A Scottish BAFTA. I had to do an acceptance speech, I can’t remember anything – I was so nervous. I got my tutor’s name wrong. My mum was in the crowd.

The Mai Shi was a one-off, it was my final year film but I didn’t know that I wanted to do animation until last year. It was just something I did because friends wanted me to, and now it’s become my day-to-day.

Where does your inspiration come from?

Most of my inspiration comes from still images that I want to see move – things that I see and think ‘that looks like a shot from a great film that doesn’t exist yet.’ And I can make it happen. All of my inspiration comes from stills, so I really like photography and graphic design.

The way I animate is in stills. I can see in my head how all the layers are going to move, but it always stems from a still.

Did you used to animate as a kid, like play with zoetropes and stuff?

I remember my dad buying me a digital camera when I was 14, and the first thing I did was play with it – it was like an amazing toy that I suddenly had access to, and I started doing stop-motion animations with Play Doh. I’d love to put them online, but people don’t realise that digital video degrades in the same way that normal stuff does. They’re over 12 years old and I can’t open the files anymore, which is really sad.

Why GIFs?

All of my work at the moment is GIFs. I actually Tweeted about it the other day, I had a to do list and it was 100% GIFs. It’s funny, they’re such simple things but suddenly it’s all that people want – people will pay me for a GIF, but they won’t pay me for a video.

It’s funny how the further we get into the age of the internet – which in theory is infinite – people seek limitations more and more, whether that’s 140 character Twitter posts, or GIFs or Vine. 

I think it’s to do with people’s attention spans. I don’t even watch films anymore, I watch series and things that I can consume in under 20 minutes. We don’t have to wait for anything anymore, we hardly ever read – we don’t read full articles, we just read the first and last paragraphs and move on.

Tell us about the GIF you made for Lynx. 

I made a GIF for Lynx with watermelons. I chose watermelons because they’re happy and bright – we were told to use Africa as our main inspiration, and that’s what it makes me think of: bright, lush patterns. I don’t really associate happiness with a lot of my work, I’m usually more solemn [laughs].

You can check out the rest of the artists for the campaign here.