Richard Reeves describes the animation process of the Yarwood Trail.....During my research It seemed that Walter Yarwood must have enjoyed hiking and nature as a source of inspiration for his sculptures such as 'the Pines' and 'the Cedar's', as well as paintings such as 'Dark Forest', 'Horizon' and 'the Island'.I decided to call the film 'Yarwood Trail', and envisioned it as a journey through his nature inspired artworks. The film represents a self guiding looping trail.Walter's sculptures deeply influenced the technique I used to create the film. I decided to sculpt images into stamps, the images came from shapes of Walters sculptures. Using photographs of the sculptures I turned them into silhouettes in photoshop and reduced the image to the size of a 35mm frame. Then reversed the images and traced them onto paper.Using carbon paper the design was transferred to the eraser stamp.With exacto blades and a dremel tool to carve out the 3 dimensional stamps they looked like miniature sculptures, several looked quite a bit like 'the Pines' sculpture details.Then, using colour opaque 35mm film stock, the stamps were dipped into bleach and pressed onto the film registering the placement by the top left corner on a frame line. A quick test on a moviola revealed relative image stability and proper exposure time of the bleach.The first stamp went really well, it looked like Walter's sculpture 'Sign #7', and the bleach mixed with the coloured emulsion looks a lot like the acid wash on his bronze sculpture 'the Cedar's'.However the next 2 stamps did not produce the image I was expecting onto the film. The stamps had the right silhouette look, but somehow the bleach made the image look different on film. I went from excitement to absolute panic because of the approaching deadline. And then a strange thing happened while working late one night. It was as if the ghost of Walter Yarwood was looking over my shoulder, reassuring me the shapes originally were inspired by the sculptures, and they have become new shapes onto the film, the root of the image is derived from the shapes of the sculptures and paintings.This film was not about animating the exact painting or sculpture, but rather a homage inspired from the works of Walter Yarwood.There would have been no other way to conjure up these images if not for Walter's sculptures and paintings.This went on everyday for the next few months, and when ever I encountered a situation, Walter would drop into the studio and help sort it out.During a progress report to Toronto Animated Image Society, i mentioned that 'Walter doesn't knock at the door anymore, just walks through it'.The stamping continued and by using a black and white film stock it was possible to paint the individual frames using transparent inks.I tried to use a similar pallet of colour as Walter's paintings.Some of the inks took several days to dry, so there was film stripes across the studio ceiling and along the walls. When all the scenes were dry they were spliced together and touched up to hide the splices.The bleach stamps were hard to fade in and out, so I tried to lessen or increase 'exposure time' of the bleach usually by counting seconds out loud as I pressed the stamp into the emulsion.This did not always work as expected and if a frame became over exposed I painted it black. This lead to strobing the images in or out as well as fades.The strobing effect worked well for cross dissolves between scenes.Walter made a painting called 'Sound, Frozen' which intrigued me to create audio for the film. The painting looks like a piece of optical sound.Originally I had contemplated a silent film, to keep the film like a painting, a motion painting, but I could not help looking at the blank optical track and thought that if there was sound... it too should be abstract and free from synchronization.I decided to use Morse code, so the first part of the film repeats in Morse code..."this film is dedicated to Walter Yarwood", after the first repeat I got bored making the same sounds over and over, so I kept the timing for the Morse code and changed each long or short note to a different optical shape.All the soundtrack was created by applying shapes to the optical stripe of the 35mm film, there are no musical instruments or any recording at all.Some of the sounds were made using graphic art tapes used in photo silk screen to make borders on maps. Another sound was made using letraset dry letter transfers and spelling out 'Walter Yarwood' along the optical stripe like a secret code. Stick on dots, India ink and engraving the emulsion also produce other tones to simulate a heart beat, transmitting electrical impulses and signals like radio transmissions. Radio waves were a popular way to send information during the 1950's.Most of the sounds were roughly timed to fit the scenes, I also used the number 11 when ever possible, like where I might have normally counted out 12 frames for a half second, I counted 11.I tried to keep true to the Painters 11 headspace and keep it free.Painters 11 artworks were met with opposition because it was so new.Because the Painters 11 were so radical, I realized I needed to make some radical changes in my usual approach to animated filmmaking. By reverse engineering the process this was the first time I made a film with out the use of a story board, no audio breakdown, no audio to start with, no frame counting, and really just trusting basic instinct, inner thought and going with the flow, it just felt right.Usually I make separate films for the sound and picture, the two rolls are married up at the lab. For this project the entire animation was made on one piece of film, both sound and picture together as a complete sound painting.The timing was all done by feel, roughly counting out the seconds and deciding well, that's enough or it needs more on each scene.I also used the number 11 when ever possible, like where I might have normally counted out 12 frames for a half second, I counted 11.It was a very liberating experience, The Yarwood Trail is really a stream of conscience artwork. I felt it needed to be this way to remain true to the Painters 11 conceptions.It was like throwing away the recipe book in the kitchen of creativity and cooking up something special.Then one day, the film was finished.After it was sent away to TAIS I had a bit of anxiety because I did not actually see it projected.Madi took the film for transfer to digital format and called to let me know a small piece of the sound fell off at the lab. She saw where it was from and replaced it with splice tape and said the film worked.It was not until two months later I saw the 35mm film projected for the first time during the premier of the 11 in Motion at the Cinematheque Ontario.After the screening and to my surprise, I met Walter Yarwood Jr., ...he liked the film and drew some maps to help me find some of his fathers sculptures in downtown Toronto. The chance of this meeting was very special and totally unexpected. I was able to the sculptures, and spent hours observing them. It as if a cosmic connection had been made.This project is amazing how it has connected so many people and reflected light onto the artworks of 'Canada's Wild Ones'...the Painters 11.RRR