The Creative Versatility of Sharon Liu
Sharon Liu is many things, a talented animation director, music video maker, illustrator and an avid GIF maker. In the latest edition of Getting down and NERDy! NERD Productions caught up with Sharon to discuss her creative process and her adaptability to shapeshift between different creative mediums.
Q> Everyone loves a good origin story, so let's start from the beginning. How did you get into animation?
Sharon> It’s funny that my interest in animation only started on my foundation course at UCA Farnham. I was never really an anime or comics fan when I was a kid. However I’ve always been into painting and during my foundation course I discovered that animation is not just ‘cartoons’, it can be painterly and experimental too. I would say that was the turning point for me.
Over the years Sharon has perfected her animation style and brought her distinctive vision to the world of commercials, working on campaigns for the likes of Boot, The Climate Coalition and RAM Trucks.
The Very Hot Snowman for The Climate Coalition display’s Sharon’s hand-drawn aesthetic in beautiful fashion, giving the piece a storybook quality that pulls on your heartstrings and with the voice talent of a certain Britpop icon the whole thing feels cosy but poignant.
Q> What would you say is the major difference between illustration and animation director?
Sharon> I guess as an illustrator I can spend more time focusing on the tiniest details, and as an animation director I have to focus on the bigger picture/ overall feel/ narrative. I realised that good animation might not necessarily contain one single frame that would work well as an illustration and a good illustration might not necessarily work as a frame of animation either.
Sharon is also a master of creating mixed media, blending her trademark animation style with live action, which you can see in full swing with her music video ‘Its Like That’ for pop royalty Mariah Carey.
Q> You experiment with many different methods, is there anything you haven’t tried yet that you’d like to explore as an artist?
Sharon> There are far too many methods I would love to try, I believe anything can be turned into animation under the camera! At the moment I’m trying to figure out a way to animate/control water!
Q> As a fellow avid GIF maker I’d love to know what you like the most about creating GIFs?
GIFs are short and sweet. It’s a documentation of my visual diary and it allows me to play with different materials and explore outside my comfort zone without any pressure.
Q> Do you think GIFs can be used to tell narratives and what do you think it adds to your work?
Sharon> Same as all other art forms, GIFs can be used to express narratives but a strength of GIFs is their versatility to be used in the digital world, including their ability to show moving images instantly without pressing play! It’s hard to think what GIFs add to my work as GIFs are my work. So instead I would rather say creating GIFs has brought me different kinds of work opportunities, a colourful portfolio and 704 million views on GIPHY.
Q> What kind of creative projects appeal to you the most as a creative?
Sharon> As I’m getting older and more experienced, working with people that I like is far more appealing to me than the nature of the project. Luckily good people tend to work on good projects too!
