Eric has had an extensive career in animation. He received his BA from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and his MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art. Between degree programs, Eric lived in New York City, where he worked on a broad range of projects as an animator/compositor and as a music video director. His music videos have aired on MTV, MTV Europe, The Box, and B.E.T. Eric’s professional animation work has also been seen in programs for PBS, The Discovery Channel and Fox International, among others.

But while working on those projects, Eric increasingly felt pulled away from the commercial world. “Putting pitches together took a lot of work, and if you don’t sell the idea, all the work is for nothing. Not to mention the fact that you’re catering your work to an audience rather than letting the work’s concept drive the piece. So, I changed my philosophy. I now create concept-driven work that, I hope, pushes the boundaries of filmmaking, and I accept that I’ll likely always have a day job.”

But his is not just any day job. As a professor at UMBC, Eric gets to share his passion with a talented group of students. “Most of them get into animation knowing only Cartoon Network, Disney, and Animae. It has been a lot of fun, and sometimes a huge challenge, to expand their horizons and help them redefine animation.”

He continues, “Art in motion surrounds us: web interfaces, film titles, mobile phone displays, video games, training simulators, animated cartoons, television graphics, etc. Animators are especially relevant in this dynamic, media-saturated world because they look beyond form, color, and texture – expression through motion is their great skill. I teach my students the expressive possibilities of motion. We explore the subject through screenings, readings, analysis, and several hands-on projects.”

And where do his students go after graduation? “They move into broadcast design, TV/film animation, the video game industry and architectural pre-visualization. And some work for the government, like Aberdeen Proving Ground, Naval Surface Weapons Center, etc. And some continue their studies in Graduate school.”

Is there perhaps an increasing convergence of “mainstream” and “experimental” media? Eric believes there may be. “I think advertising is the main commercial market for experimental animation. Look at the latest Sprint TV commercials:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW_9SYaWAQg [type in "Sprint Animation" in the search bar if needed] They are an example of the ultimate experimental animator Cinderella story.”

Eric’s work has been honored at many festivals world-wide, including winning Best of Show at the 2007 Rosebud Festival http://www.rosebudact.org/ and Jury’s Choice Award at the Black Maria Film and Video Festival http:www.blackmariafilmfestival.org/ His work has also been shown at the Sundance Film Festival (where he had the opportunity to discuss his filmmaking style with Robert Redford) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKtnD_xfx3U [Editor’s note: Eric’s work also frequently gets shown at international venues, so he regularly calls upon David Ryan at Video Labs to have his projects converted to play in the European PAL standard.]

Eric is now working on his next film project titled, “Bellows,” for which he is taking another step further with his cinetropes. “I am creating animated sequences and resultant cinetropes in a three-dimensional software application, then printing them out in ceramic or plastic on a rapid-prototyping printer (a.k.a. 3-D printer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing. I hand-paint and manually alter the cinetropes, spin them using a variable-speed motor, then shoot them with a high-definition video camera. The ability to print out three-dimensional animated sequences, alter them in the real world, and shoot them in real-time is lush, unexplored territory and builds a much-needed bridge between digital and tactile processes in animation and filmmaking. The process rethinks the status quo of (often sterile) digital animation, reintroducing the human hand to the art form. The final manifestation of the project will be a short film and an art installation. I’ve been working on it for a little over a year and expect it to be finished in December of 2008.”

We’ll be sure to check-in with Eric again once that film is released.

To learn more about Eric Dyer and his films, visit http://art.umbc.edu/fac_staff/dyer.htm and www.ericdyer.com.

To contact Eric, e-mail him at: dyer@umbc.edu

Want to share some of your thoughts about Eric’s filmmaking? Feel free to write a comment below.

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