Ideas and Storytelling - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 99

The most basic structure is to set up a situation of normality, then complicate it with
change; perhaps the arrival of a stranger, a quest or a threat, then resolve it with some sort
of confrontation, either real or internal, with a new order restored after what amounts to a
journey of enlightenment. The three-act structure works even in short i lms, but what is more
important than endless theory is to make the telling of the tale interesting, by drawing in
an audience and teasing them into wanting to know more about the characters and their
situation, being just that one step ahead of them, tantalising them but not confusing them,
leading them one way then outwitting them, getting them to care. To keep them watching
there is little point in giving things away from the beginning. I was disappointed that the recent
remake of The Wicker Man chose to feature the wicker man itself on the posters. The butler
might as well have done it, and told the audience as they came in. Information, both plot and
visual, needs to be teased out and pieced together over the length of the i lm. In the popular
stage and i lm versions of The Phantom of the Opera the big ef ect, the crashing chandelier, is
given away in the i rst few minutes by seeing it rise into position. There is little surprise when
it falls, although there is the rather clinical tension of waiting for it. I love structures where
everything only falls into place in the last few frames, leaving you going back over the i lm,
piecing it together in your head. I am bored, though, by i lms that put it all on a plate, usually
linear i lms, with nothing left after the credits.
There are the classic themes on which all plots are supposedly based (with such stories as
The Quest, The Journey, The Rise and sometimes Fall, the Battle against the Monster, A Second
Chance, and Comedy and Tragedy, and all manner of variation) and following these guidelines
leads to i lms that resonate, but I would encourage a bit of innovative lateral thinking. Animation
of all art forms has licence to break rules and experiment. It can do anything, as there are no
rules about making animated i lms, but the one thing it cannot do is be dull. Many an exciting
i lm has been made of a dull topic, thanks to an imaginative director and writer. True, many a
dull i lm has been made out of an exciting topic, thanks to an unimaginative director.
M.C. Escher and other artists
With his knack of challenging with a fresh perspective, it is not surprising that I love the etchings
of Escher, and like many model makers and set designers I am fascinated by seeing these
glorious optical illusions realised in three dimensions. That they cannot exist, except cheated
to one specii c viewpoint, adds to their appeal. Walking round such a model there would be
signii cant gaps and unparallel parallel lines. It's his never-ending staircases in drawings such
as Relativity (1953) that appeal to me and I will animate that illusion one day, but it would be a
cheat. Stop motion is a cheat. It looks as if it could happen but it cannot. I push this element in
all my i lms. Next looks as if it could happen on stage, but even with clever editing it could not.
I like that delicious twilight area between total naturalism and complete abstraction.
The paintings of Magritte also interest me, and although perhaps they look a little obvious today
(because there have been so many imitators who have taken his ideas even further),
when i rst seen these paintings must have been astonishing. To juxtapose two
dif erent images, or reverse a perspective, is what animators do every day, and I am
surprised that Magritte's inl uence on animation isn't greater. I wrote an animated
feature i lm script with the bowler-hatted, apple-faced character from The Great War
(1964) as a main protagonist, but was told that paintings were hardly a commercial
subject. Shame. Magritte does turn everything upside down, with a great 'what if …?'