by Joseph O'Brien photography by Christopher Fraser
Once upon a time, Joseph O'Brien bought a My Little Pony, and a lighter, and combined the two. Then Christopher came and took some photos, and they had a whale of a time waiting for their wonderful pictures to upload to a notoriously slow site because they had (at the time) close to no lives whatsoever.
To download wallpaper versions of images, right click the links underneath each one and select Save Target As....
by Christopher Fraser and Joseph O'Brien This project, featuring the adventures of a series of apparently random personified objects encompasses all areas of literature, art and even audio, but its most famous incarnation was the animation series XavierFace, which can be found here.
by Joseph O'Brien Now aging somewhat, the original sketches by Joseph O'Brien, hailing right from the start of HiatusMedia can now be found here in a much better layout.
by Christopher Fraser (with Joseph O'Brien) Inspired by a drama lesson in which a Goblin killed himself after drink-driving, this first (and perhaps last) serious endeavour into Flash animation by Christopher Fraser is the closest to a masterpiece we will ever get in such a realm.
by Christopher Fraser The adventure of a sperm cell, angry at being rejected by the womb and setting out to destroy the world, set to the music of Interpol.
All the rubbish pieces of art that were never really good enough to proclaim as art themselves. Including: The NSPCD, Consumerism, My Little Pony and others.
The NSPCD was a joint venture between Christopher Fraser and ex-member and wanker Simon Bamforth, as a result of a Year 10 science lesson in which a wind-up duck toy was shamelessly exploited to explain kinetic energy to a bunch of people who had little interest in Physics, and more interest in duck abuse. At one point, there was a rather large campaign, with posters all over school, but now it has been reduced back down to its origins - all that survive are a poster and wallpaper image, both of which can be found below.
If you were expecting any massive surprise here, we're afraid you're about to be disappointed - this is indeed just a picture of Joseph O'Brien holidaying in the wonderful country of Austria, in the summer of 2004.
Picture taken at Hohenwerfen Castle, Austria by Christopher Fraser
Featuring the voices of Joseph O'Brien and Matthew Aplin
Music by celador and Eels
Maplin: The Movie was, essentially, Christopher's first big hit. It was split into two parts - the first being a fairly retarded spoof of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire called "Who Wants To Be A Complete Loser", with Matthew in the hotseat, and the other part featuring Matthew driving off a cliff. It wasn't particularly good (despite protests), funny (again, despite protests) or memorable (despite "OR FOUR: A SMALL HIPPOPOTAMUS CALLED BERTIE" becoming a short-lived and rather unlikely catchphrase of the time).
A poster was also produced in the spirit of the moment, and can be downloaded in the following formats (right-click on the links under the image and select Save Target As..., or left-click them and save the image in the new window):
Despite its controversial name, Blowing Up Jesus was just the image-by-image product of an afternoon on Lego Creator with Matthew Aplin, meticulously constructing the word "JESUS", then attaching Lego dynamite and blowing it up. There would be video, but at the time I didn't have any decent screen capture software, so a step-by-step image series will have to do.
Consumerism was initially intended as a good piece of work, until it bombed in the animation ratings (yes, they exist) and it was thrown out, perhaps for seeming to be a little too desperate to mimic David Firth, and the fact that it wasn't really very good at all. Desperate to salvage some credibility, the name "Consumerism" was attached at the last minute, to see if the American public would get that it was really about being too greedy around Christmas (which was when it was first published).
It didn't work. Incidentally, neither does the replay button at the end.
Slow Hands by Christopher Fraser music by Interpol
Slow Hands started as an abstract rhythmical experiment with Flash and the music of a rather wondrous rock group, but ended up forming itself into some form of story, involving a rejected sperm trying to take over the world.It was a loose plotline, though.
The Goblin by Christopher Fraser concept by Joseph O'Brien
The only decent Flash animation to surface during Christopher's brief foray into "serious" animation, The Goblin was inspired by a drama lesson, in which students were instructed to perform a brief road safety advert of their own composition. The group with Christopher and Joseph was, obviously, decidedly bizarre, and decided to make a vaudeville-style piece, injecting nonsensical elements such as Goblins and walruses along the way. The animation was created much later, after an audio piece.
Written by Joseph O'Brien, Animated by Christopher Fraser Featuring the voices of Joseph O'Brien, Gemma Smith. Christopher Fraser, Matthew Aplin, George Phillips and Simon Bamforth
Originally seen by very few people. More scary than anything, really. Features the first appearance of a female voice actress. We're all about equal opportunities.
Written by Joseph O'Brien, Animated by Christopher Fraser Featuring the voices of Joseph O'Brien, Christopher Fraser, Matthew Aplin, and Simon Bamforth
Seen by many as the best episode, probably because there was at least some degree of time put into it. Check out the textures on that tree. A cameo by Hitler, and the addition of music. In some strange forms.
Written by Joseph O'Brien, Animated by Christopher Fraser Featuring the voices of Joseph O'Brien, Christopher Fraser, Matthew Aplin, Simon Bamforth, and Joseph Beckwith
The first episode with a background, however simple it might have been. Marked improvements in timing, diversity, and a vast contribution to the stigmatisation of the word "random".
Written by Joseph O'Brien, Animated by Christopher Fraser Featuring the voices of Joseph O'Brien, Christopher Fraser, Simon Bamforth, Matthew Aplin, Joseph Beckwith and George Phillips
Ooh, transparency on the subtitles! This must be good!...naturally, it wasn't, though the timing in this episode was vastly improved. The first one with a vast array of settings and characters - the final character list came to about 101, I think.
Written by Joseph O'Brien, Animated by Christopher Fraser Featuring the voices of Joseph O'Brien, Christopher Fraser, Simon Bamforth, Matthew Aplin, Joseph Beckwith and George Phillips
The first episode with a background, however simple it might have been. Marked improvements in timing, diversity, and a vast contribution to the stigmatisation of the word "random".
Written by Joseph O'Brien, Animated by Christopher Fraser Featuring the voices of Joseph O'Brien, Christopher Fraser, Joseph Beckwith, and Matthew Aplin
This first episode was definitely the poorest, and was produced a while before the others. Undoubtedly, everything in it was crap.
A project spanning two years (and the rest), How To Be A Homosexual was the beginning of a revolution. Sparking interest from all four corners of the globe, the scripts and animation that comprised the project became the foundation for YourHeartWillStop, our old site, and spurred both creators on to greater products.The How To Be A Homosexual scripts were a product of Joseph O'Brien's mind, a selection of surrealist dialogues and random tomfoolery put to paper when he was bored. The characters in these scripts took physical form in an art lesson, where Bunnyreaper drew some small sketches and Pianoabuser enlarged them. These were then brought into Flash, animated, and thus the animation series XavierFace was born. The series ran for six episodes, then stopped - partially for educational reasons, and partially because the birth of YourHeartWillStop was beginning. All of those animations can be found here, along with other goodies.
Episodes
The cartoon series, as has already been mentioned, ran for six episodes. Here you can find them all, including the sixth - an episode never originally released.
The theme tune was possibly the best thing about XavierFace and How To Be A Homosexual. Nowadays, it resides on the site as the Hiatus Theme, but the essence is the same - 50 seconds of sped-up hard rock bliss.
Another little gem, the XavierFace trailer was another work of genius, and probably got the most laughs. Synchronised to the theme tune, it works as a great music video if nothing else.
The character models for XavierFace went through a few phases, and this page shows you the second. The first ones are lost in a sketch book somewhere, and may resurface at some point. Until then, feast your eyes on this portfolio.
The Future
So what does the future hold for How To Be A Homosexual? In the words of fanboy and sad case Michael Kay, "this is the best thing I've ever seen". It's certainly the biggest project we've ever attempted, and the first that's combined a scripted performance with animation. Even the Goblin was based off a short improv.The honest answer is, we don't know. There have been talks of making a new series, or compiling the best bits from the scripts, using frame-by-frame techniques, starting anew and all sorts, but no action's been taken yet. The reason for this is evident. Take a look at HiatusMedia.com - this is the extent to which we work, and focusing purely on one project hinders us creatively. HiatusMedia is created for whims and fancies, and something on the scale of How To Be A Homosexual...well, it's a miracle it lasted so long in the first place.
Then again, keep your eyes peeled. There may be life in this yet.
How To Be A Homosexual was produced as a series of animations, voiced by a variety of people and animated by the unskilled hand of Christopher Fraser. They received a generally mixed reception, with some calling it fantastic and some declaring it the worst visual experience they'd had in years. Despite such criticism, all six episodes of this short-lived series are contained here for your visual and auditory delectation. Enjoy.
WARNING: Although How To Be A Homosexual (and XavierFace) were designed with all audiences in mind, the series contains some elements which people may find disturbing. These include, but are not limited to:
Flashing imagery
Ridicule of stigmatised historical figures, i.e. Adolf Hitler
Over the years, in lieu of pursuing more literary tastes, Joseph has from time to time pursued the profession of visual artistry, in the form of a series of sketches. Here, we present the cream of the crop – thirty-five hand-picked sketches for you to peruse.
The images are split into four discrete groups of ten, so as to enable the viewer to avoid bewilderment. Click through to any of them below.
PLEASE NOTE: Although none of the following images are photographic, and all are hand-drawn with little or no actual resemblance to actual forms, some of the content that follows the links below could be seen as mildly offensive. Viewers younger than 15 years of age should not proceed.
