Lee Tao – Seedling
the new filmmaker: What’s the story of your film?
Lee Tao: This is a story about the journey of the life of a seed as it falls from the tree it was born from. Seedling revolves around the idea of rebirth and the life cycle of all living things on this planet. Such trivial events like the sprouting of seeds seen in a different context and different perspective; that is what I was trying to achieve with this short film. Even the antagonist in the story is supposed to represent humans harvesting the seeds for food and sustenance, another natural part of life.
the new filmmaker: What inspired you?
Lee Tao: I am a painter and designer first and foremost so my main sources of inspiration come from traditional paintings, illustrations, digital media, and of course film. I’ve always like drawing and painting organic things, like people and nature, so I naturally gravitated toward a more organic style for this film with the addition of all the influences I mentioned above.
the new filmmaker: What equipment do you shoot with?
Lee Tao: For this film, a main goal I wanted to play around with is the idea to blend the animation with the environment as best as I could into a moving painting of sorts. For this, I animated traditionally(doing 12 dawings per second) and painted the backgrounds all in Adobe Photoshop cs5 with Wacom Cintiqs and Intuos3 tablets. After that, it is all imported natively to Adobe AfterEffects cs5 for compositing.
the new filmmaker: Film school or learning by doing?
Lee Tao: I recently graduated from Sheridan College in Canada with a Bachelors in Animation.
the new filmmaker: Which filmmaker had the greatest influence your style?
Lee Tao: Disney feature films would have to be the biggest influence on my visual style. In saying that, Hans Bacher, Alberto Mielgo, James Jean, J.W. Waterhouse, and John Singer Sargent are my main recent influences from both film and fine art.
