Hitchcock quickly became my favorite director when I discovered the unrated ‘Classics’ section at Blockbuster Video at about age 12. Since they weren’t restricted, I happily made my way through ‘Vertigo’, ‘Rope’, ‘The Birds’ and anything else I could get my hands on. It didn’t help that you could watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents on the kids’ channel Nickelodeon at night, and that my grade school had Daphne Du Maurier and some horror books of questionable appropriateness hiding in the shelves. (I certainly wasn’t complaining, and devoured them all.)In creating my own animations, it was early Hitchcock and Film Noir for inspiration (espcially ‘No 17’). Set around the elevated train tracks of Chicago, this short was a blast. When my instructor had viewed it, he commented, ‘There’s something very wrong with you,’ and I felt like I achieved my desired effect.
‘Noir’ features inkwash and pen storyboards, setting the mood and camera angles for this murderous, quickie suspense.
