Ideas and Storytelling - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 92

to achieve. The yoghurt pots would have been good if we'd made them dance or something. They just
went back and forth instead.
TD - My fi rst fi lm was with another student who wasn't an animator but a photographer. Hence the
decision to use stop motion. We looked at what was available or ready made, i.e. school equipment and
facilities, and jointed dolls, toys and household interiors. We built a story around our constraints. We
were pretty focused and direct about the whole process. We ended up having to shoot the whole thing
twice as we shot on 16 mm with no means to 'see' what we were doing. We knew enough to stay out of
the fi lm frame while shooting, but we neglected our shadows, which were prominent throughout.
A valuable lesson. My shadow hasn't been seen since! Another lesson is running out of fi lm while
shooting, and not knowing it.
RH - My fi rst fi lm was a combination of musical songs, woven into a kind of twenty-minute story. The
script actually evolved out of the songs, but the songs were the key. The cartoon character tried to live as
a human, but failed in the outside world. He'd return to the drawing board for helpful advice. In the end
he gave up and remained a cartoon character, in his own medium, where he belonged. I was pleased to
come up with the perfect title - Back to the Drawing Board !
JC - My fi rst projects (mostly unfi nished) were based around memory and memories. I was interested in
the memories and feeling evoked by all the senses. I wanted to explore this and also combine animation
with my interest in photography. I'd experiment with using a 35 mm stills camera, manipulating and
animating the prints produced. I found most early projects would start with one idea that evolved into
something quite different, usually better. I'd spend a lot of time working and reworking storyboards. In
the early stages I'd talk to my contemporaries but often found they would try to take the idea off in a
different direction, their direction.
DS - Our fi rst fi lm (which was cut-outs and chalk drawings) was pretty formless. From then on we had
a theme to work for the Vision On work. This was helpful in focusing our ideas and I would recommend
to anyone starting out as it avoids the 'what shall I make a fi lm about' syndrome. Although we did short
pieces with a variety of characters (abstracts, burglars, lumpies and little fi gures) they all derived from
having a theme to work to. Morph of course came out of this and that's when we got into writing stuff
properly in terms of storytelling. We had also by that time worked on the early Animated Conversations ,
where again the raw material of the soundtrack provides a great jumping-off point for ideas and
approach.
I have never had a problem coming up with ideas, and never had any creative block. It's the
outlet that's the tricky one, so I am surprised that one of the most frequent questions is 'where
do you get your ideas from? ' Sometimes, the trick is to block out the new ideas bursting forth
before the current ones are sorted out. It can be hard having an imagination where everything
is possible. It's a cliché that the smallest newspaper article has some germ of a story. The
success of the story is how interesting is the telling, and whether there has been
a development, a journey, a point or a perspective that can engage the audience.
Even the smallest story can be interesting if told in an involving way, with enough
conl ict, progression and a fresh perspective. Practically any subject, any genre
can become a story, but we have to decide whether our particular medium is
appropriate for the telling. Being aware of what animation can do that live action
cannot helps to focus the l ood of ideas.