LuisCastanon.com

Hans Van Harken

October 2007

Q:

Greetings, back for another enlightening episode of AOTM. As is the tradition in all past episodes, who are you? What’s your story and whats your contribution the Flash movement?

A:

My name’s Hans Van Harken, born in Syracuse, NY but have moved around all over the US, recently lived in Barcelona Spain for a while and now settled in the Bay Area of California. Ever since I was a kid I drew a lot and had loads of ideas in my head.
In 2003 I discovered the internet and it’s amazing use. I had not known exactly what it had done, and to be specific a friend of mine had shown me Combat Instinct and Pico’s School on Newgrounds in 2001, 2 years later, when i started researching stuff on the internet for myself i punched in Pico’s School on Google, and eventually found what Newgrounds was really all about. After a year of becoming a close follower of Madness, Legendary Frog, Poninjas, and many others, I started thinking “Hey, I could do stuff like this”. So I downloaded a trial version of Flash MX 2004, self taught myself flash, and eventually started submitting stuff to Newgrounds in 2004.

Q:

Hmm, fairly typical but interesting nonetheless. So fast forward to 2007, you have about 30 flash animations under your belt, doing everything from spoofs to claymation and action stuff. Where do you think your strengths lie or are you still soul searching?

A:

Yeah, I do have a lot of crap. Mainly all this is just ’soul searching’ as you call it. I’m really right now just trying out different stuff to see where my strengths an weaknesses are. What I’ve gathered so far is the following:
-I thought video game parodies (Halo to be specific) weren’t the best they could be on Newgrounds. So I planned out my on big epic halo parody (which I’m now slaving at) and realized why know one has done it yet. It’s a big endless bitch to carry out such huge-ass projects all on your own… or mostly on your own.
-Another thing I’ve discovered, or rather I question, is just the fact that I have so many ideas in my head I can’t seem to stick to one from beginning to end. For example the ‘CLATOMIC’ series. That or my projects are way too ‘big’ and require just alittle more work than most do.

Q:

I hear that, so let me put you on the spot for a second…which one(s) of your pieces are you most proud of and why?

A:

Animation Invasion has to be one of them simply because it’s the one big project i completely finished and did become pretty successful and gained myself a little more, how can I put this… popularity on the site? It was also something more rare on the net and was happy people recognized that. But my personal favorite of my projects would have to be the CLATOMIC series, even though the series isn’t finished i think the pacing, story, and characters were pretty good and have really gotten the closest to the essence of my soul, poetically speaking.

Q:

I liked Animation Invasion as well, I think its tough and still fertile territory to marry video and animation and you did pretty well with it. So I remember being part of your Valentine ‘29 collab earlier this year, I admit that when you first approached me i thought it was a weird idea and i wasn’t sure if youd have success getting people to understand it. Was that one of those ideas you had brewing for ages or what was it that inspired you to throw that together and take a collaborative angle on it?

A:

That project was actually started by a friend of mine, Gorilla Studios, he was the original ‘leader’ for the collaboration. One day he asked me if I would like to be a part of it. He started telling me about the other authors in it and all and showed me some clips. The funny part was that with all the separate fragments of information he presented me, I gathered a different final result. Initially the collaboration was going to be like most, fragmentized short movies all collected in a bunch. But with the idea of Al Capone and the Massacre, I thought what he meant was telling the story in it’s stages, make a chronological sequence of scenes that made sense all placed together. My friend (Gorilla Studios) ended up not being able to continue the project and canceled it. I asked him if I could revive the project and do it how I thought he meant it to be when I misunderstood him. He approved and Valentine ‘29 ended up being what it is now. So basically the result of making a collaboration the way it was done was all because I gathered the information that he gave me… wrong.

Q:

Funny how things pan out sometimes…Well for a project you revived I really think you did a good job taking a leadership role in conveying the vision of it. Anywho, it would be remiss of me to not mention this, I was poking around your userpage and you’ve been hyping up ‘It’s a Halo Thing’, for the sake of informing people currently reading this, what is that all about and why would anyone set out to make such a long ass animation isn’t it slated to be like 20 mins or something?

A:

Ha ha… oh, that. 17 minutes and 4 seconds to be exact. That’s the big movie. I honestly don’t know what I got myself into with that but I know the outcome will be good. Basically it’s about the first ‘Halo’ game. I am parodying each and every level in Halo one. Yes, no joke, no exaggerations. I had planned to release it as one big fucking movie, but when I was looking at the file size being 30% finished and already a 9 MB file size, I ‘re-thunk’ it over and decided to make it a 4 episode series. Yes, i did the math and split it so that each episode is about the same length. Sometimes when in a series some episodes are longer than other’s endings can be so abrupt you get pissed and decide to not watch the rest (*cough* Xombie *cough* :P). So I figured this way would be best. Plus, I plan on having the entire movie available at my site. And my big plans are to send it to Bungie friendly people. Like Bungie Studios, Peter Jackson, and maybe some Game channels and TV shows. So they can “A: just sit back and have some laughs, or B: Apply it to some kind of distribution like TV, or a special on a DVD, or in a DVD of their own, and if I have a lot of luck, write a script for a Halo 2 and 3 movie or something.” Mainly, if none of that works. I’ll just have made one hell of a Halo parody and set a new standard for all the Newgrounds submitters so that they’ll think twice before making a Halo parody… just kidding I really just want to make people laugh a lot.

Q:

Well if Halo’s current popularity is any measure of how you’ll fare it should get gobbled up like the 5-dollar slut next door. While we are on the subject of long projects, how do you stay motivated when you are working on a huge projects? Everyone seems to have a different approach to keeping their mojo, whats yours?

A:

I guess going down to that basics, you don’t think of the 15 minutes of animation left, more like the few frames left for animating this shot. Take it step by step. Observe the slowly progressive line of moving images that shape the soul of the movie… wow that sounded gay. But yeah, just take it step at a time. Also seeing it finished in your mind helps, because then you know it’s not an impossible task.

Q:

Fair enough. Ok time to grill ya a little bit. Spoofs are one of those things that are loved by the general public but are somewhat frowned upon in terms of being something artistic and mindblowing. Do you ever worry about that? For instance LegendaryFrog has taken a slew of heat as an artist for his heavy number of spoofs. Part of me feels guilty for giving someone a hard time for doing something they enjoy doing. Whats your take on it?

A:

One thing’s for sure, after Halo, I am not working all the way through any more game parodies. “It’s A Halo Thing” is the only one for me simply because of it’s magnitude. I actually am working on more artsy-fartsy stuff right now honestly. I can’t say much right now cause it’s top secret, but let’s just say there isn’t a single animation on Newgrounds about it. Well, one, but it’s so inaccurate one can’t even consider. As for the Parody People, well yes… they are doing what they love but by no means can they consider themselves good ‘artists’ or ‘animators’ or good ‘writers’ or ‘voice actors’. They are however, which I highly respect, amazing at capturing the interest of a massive amoeba of people’s attention. Something I pathetically haven’t been able to do after nearly 30 cartoons, yet something Rubber Ninja has been able to do from his 1st cartoon (Van Helthing) and maintained an insanely popular status with only 2 individual cartoons on the site. They must have something I obviously don’t and therefore I highly respect their mystery talents. I consider myself a guy, who can kinda draw, has some ideas and wants to know which place he best works at.

Q:

Well I think you should always just do what you find fun, wether that be hentai spoofs or whatever, in the end, youre the one slaving away not us. Ok, wrappin this shit up, any flash plans for the rest of the year and on into 2008 beyond the Halo thing?

A:

Boy, do I. I’m most likely finishing “It’s A Halo Thing 1/4″ by late 2007, don’t know about the rest yet. I have that mystery project coming in April 2008, specifically April. But the rest of my projects are games. I really want to expand on mine and Bas’ (Bas in het Veld) gaming company, Pivot Games. We’re working on Defense Force, a first person shooter Defense Game that’s got quite an annoying history really. A large variety mini game, (Wario Ware style). And Finally, and insanely ambitious flash adventure game that will probably be released somewhere in 2009, Ha Ha!

Thats the biggest pile of bullshit if i ever smelled one. Its a BAD omen when an animator plans that far ahead, it usually means youll pretty much get nuthin done, but we’re still rooting for ya :)