Chris Hall The Whetstone / Jon Salacuse

By Jon Salacuse (Whetstone Staff Writer)

Senior Chris Hall, 21, has been creating animated films for six years.

He started at 15.

He has since produced 50 1- to 2-minute animations, a few 30-minute animations and is working on a longer film, which is about, “two emotional, crippled drug dealers, and a cop who is the antagonist.”

Hall, a Dover native, graduated from Caesar Rodney High School in 2007.

He originally got interested in film when he animated Beatles music in a video.

He began working in animation becausen he did not own camcorder. He used Microsoft Paint, and worked his way from there.

“Originally, I came up with the idea to make my cartoon characters look as much like a real human being as possible without going to rotoscoping,” Hall said.

An animator rotoscopes by drawing or tracing over live-action film.

Hall has found inspiration in Stanley Kubrick’s and Martin Scorsese’s work.

Scorsese, he said, “wanted to portray life more realistically then a Michael Bay or George Lucas character.” Bay directed the movie, “Transformers.”

“I like a character who may be an immoral person, but still does things that makes them appear like a good guy,” Hall said.

He prefers morally ambiguous characters and tries his best to stay away from the common hero or villain.

Hall uses public domain pieces for his background music. Some of these include Beethoven, Bach and Wagner.

He would like for his films to have original music.

“I would like to give someone who can write music a copy of my script and let them create the music from their interpretation of it,” he said.

He makes his own sound effects.

Hall and his friends do the voices for his videos

“I can do several different accents at various pitches,” he said.

Hall is thinking ahead about a career after graduation.

“I’d like to make enough money in the future to license my own small business, so I could make my own small films and release them,” he said. “And make enough money to keep my business going.”

Hall finds film a perfect way to express himself.

“This was the best way to do it,” he said. “If someone cares, that’s great; if not, then it’s not going to change the way I feel about making the film.”