Getting Personal - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 78

Mark invited me back down to Chorlton cum Hardy, and eventually to Chorlton himself.
I had bluf ed my way into a job through enthusiasm, albeit a certain informed enthusiasm.
It was some time before I owned up to never having worked with a puppet (there, I talk about
working with a puppet, as if it's a two-way collaboration. It is). It was a year before I started at
Cosgrove Hall, as I was touring with the musical The Boyfriend . The actors were thrilled for me,
even if they didn't understand what it entailed. I'm not sure I did either. I was so excited, but
was I actually starting a new career? I had l irted with the idea of rescue from the theatre, but
had I actually wanted to be saved? Animation seemed glamorous and better paid, but was
this what I wanted? I was l attered by Mark Hall's interest, but I had pushed to do something
exciting, and then felt nervously out of my depth. The thought that I might get to act, albeit
through puppets, was exhilarating. I believed I could do this, and walking into Cosgrove Hall I
realised it was the right decision. Here was a company, producing both 2D and 3D animation,
actively encouraging young talent, and there was a feeling of shared discovery, led by Mark
and Brian's great warmth and support. A lot of talent has been nurtured by this prestigious
company and I've been lucky and pleased to be part of its family for three decades.
My i rst test was with a puppet called Grandma Bricks . She was a decent size, with a relatively
short skirt so I could easily reach her legs. She had uncomfortable wire hair and she didn't fall to
pieces. I can still feel the texture of her clothes and the solidity of her face, but more than that I
remember the excitement of holding the puppet and discovering the armature under her soft
latex. The i rst time I moved her joints, they stayed in the position I put them in. Well, that was it.
So how were your fi rst puppets and did they animate well?
JD - My early 'puppets' were made of clay. My fi rst 'serious' wire and rubber animation puppet was a
squid made for an absurdly ambitious 8 mm production of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . Before the squid,
my friends and I completed a twenty-minute fi lm entitled Snag of Time , in which animated clay dinosaurs
appeared with live-action humans (mostly by intercutting). The big challenge was to keep them from
distorting beyond all recognition during the scene.
TB - Most of the puppets that I did were experiments in foam built up over a wire armature, using
straight latex rubber, which is too stiff for normal puppet work. I made a strange creature with a scorpion
tail, bat wings, and a big Cyclops eye at the end of the tail, and two legs like the hind legs of a dog or
horse, which I animated in front of a live-action image of my cousin fl ying about via an aerial brace,
who shadowboxed as if the creature was in front of him. The image I projected onto a semi-clear piece
of matte paper with a Super 8 projector. It was limiting, but the experience of combining live-action with
animation was invaluable, because I learned about what NOT to do.
DC - I didn't animate anything I made; they were for playing with. The fi rst character I animated was a
Fisher Price director chap from a TV studio set. He was like a Star Wars fi gure in shirt and tie and was
unanimatable with far too few joints.
SB - I made a couple of Plasticine models but they had no armature and got squashed.
TD - I was about seven when I made the fi rst sculpture that was meant to be poseable. It was a
Plasticine horse with yarn hair. I played with dolls by moving them through actions, animating them
without a camera, seeing the process unfold and planting the visual/sensate elements of the process in