Animation, unfettered by reality, has the liberty, more than most art forms, to play with
structure. I have seen many fi lms with brilliantly innovative structures, and then there have been those that lacked any structure whatsoever. I fi nd linear fi lms dull and a waste of animation’s enormous potential. Likewise, at festivals I have watched fi lms that have been an abstract succession of colours and shapes and movements, without an idea or concept. I feel stupid as I must be missing something. Perhaps that the images change is enough, and I know not everything needs a plot to work, but I do like to see some thought process, even if it’s only a slow change of colour or a movement speeding up, or a progression of some sorts, or a reaction
to some music. Things so stripped of shape and form I fi nd hard to applaud. I respond more to ideas that are played with, even if these are basic ideas, such as literally seeing how colours change next to each other. A fi lm like Raimond Krumme’s drawn fi lm Rope Dancers appeals to me as it takes a simple idea of two sketchy men tied together by a red line. The fi lm follows their attempt to escape each other, and in the process they play with every perspective possible on a fl at piece of paper. The series of gags is given dynamics by an increasing desperation,
KD – I enjoy Tim Burton’s fi lms; they take you somewhere, an imaginative world, somewhere with a slight edge to it.
RC – I enjoy all sorts of fi lms; mystery, fantasy, adventure, drama and comedy. It just needs to be done well. From a Hopalong Cassidy western that’s played ‘straight’ to a Marx Brothers’ farce to something as classic as Casablanca. A well-written fi lm has universal themes anyone can relate to, so they speak to adults as well. I can watch animation any time.
DC – No guilt, it’s what I do. It’s homework or research, but mostly it’s my passion and interest. Animation when done well has a magic I enjoy. I like to still have questions after a fi lm about how they got what they got.
SB – A good fi lm is a good fi lm whether or not it’s animated or for kids or adults; people like Pixar and studio Ghibli have proved that.
RH – I’m a big fan of all genres of fi lm, but musical and comedy are my particular favourites. When these two genres come together, like in Mary Poppins (which features animated sequences) there’s a fi lm I can relate to and enjoy. My love of music and humour shows in my animation, and my ideas. I feel guilty pleasures in watching all kinds of animation – it’s an art form I get great enjoyment from watching, no matter what the subject matter.
JC – I love all sorts of fi lms (although as a ‘scaredy cat’ am not so keen on horror fi lms). I love silent comedy, old musicals, war fi lms, romantic comedy, westerns, thrillers, arts cinema. I wouldn’t limit myself to working only on selected projects. Diversity keeps you fresh and challenged. I’d say that if a project particularly interested me I’d pursue it harder.
FL – I feel sometimes like a kid and sometimes like an adult when I see animation fi lms. And sometimes I feel both ways during the same fi lm.
and wildness in the gags. At the same time the fi lm plays with our perception of what we are looking at, while also making some comment about interdependence. This is true of the great Tom and Jerry fi lms, the Road Runner series, and Bill Plympton’s hysterical fi lms. There is seldom a plot, but there is a relationship or a strong theme, and a series of linked and escalating gags that play on every combination of these themes. One of my favourite cultural pieces is David Bintley’s heartbreaking ballet Still Life at the Penguin Café. In a café setting, various animals introduce themselves, dancing their character and predicament with pure elegance and wit. There is no narrative as such, but towards the end an accumulated theme and connection emerges that these animals might be endangered species pleading for a place on the ark. On this occasion all are saved, except for the great auk. This sounds as if there is a plot, but all this is satisfyingly oblique. A series of characters or gags linked by a common theme appears in so many animated fi lms. Next is little more than that, but hopefully none the worse.
With my obsession about seeing the mechanics of storytelling, it’s little wonder that my favourite fi lms are about seeing the stories behind the stories. In them all is some façade, some iconic exterior, be it personal, theatrical, sexual or artistic, that has to be maintained, even if the interior is under stress and falling to pieces. The confl ict and tension between this outer face and the inner face makes for good drama, where the two worlds refl ect and illuminate each other. Films such as The Dresser, The Red Shoes, Living in Oblivion, Noises Off , Truff aut’s Day for Night, Theatre of Blood, Les Enfants du Paradis, Some Like it Hot, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Amadeus, The Boyfriend, Oh What a Lovely War, Cabaret and Dream Child all have some outward show to preserve, while the inner show is something totally diff erent. I love this tension and role-playing. In the Mousetrap scene in Hamlet, Shakespeare uses a short theatrical piece to bring all the unsaid accusations into the open; he shows the truth by showing it as artifi ce. The point of a piece being distanced can be, in eff ect, to bring it closer. All the trivia is cut away, and the essence of the situation is brutally revealed. That’s what animators do so well. Since animation is such a painstaking process, we are hardly going to animate the unnecessary. Like caricaturists who capture a face in a few lines, animators can capture a mood, a movement or a character in a few economical frames.
This stripping back could be described as theatrical, although that seems to be a derogatory word, but it does describe how I work. I have developed a defi nitely simplistic style. This grew out of necessity on Next, but now I revel in it. When I have designed stage productions for my local Garrick Theatre I’ve tried to create a visually interesting and sometimes startling space where the actors are still the centre of attention. I have little patience for literal representations of spaces, feeling that both theatre and animation should celebrate the artifi ce of the medium. Neither art can ever be realistic, and it seems a futile exercise trying to be so. A more apt word is ‘credible’. If the actors and puppets exist in a credible space, a space where their performance can work, then we will believe them. I’m sure that much of the appeal of stop motion is that we are aware that these characters are puppets, and there’s a handmade element involved. The fact that we are taken in by them is all part of the satisfying complicity with the fi lm-makers.