Ideas and Storytelling - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 102

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.
Narrative structure and artifi ce
Animation, unfettered by reality, has the liberty, more than most art forms, to play with
structure. I have seen many i lms with brilliantly innovative structures, and then there have been
those that lacked any structure whatsoever. I i nd linear i lms dull and a waste of animation's
enormous potential. Likewise, at festivals I have watched i 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 i 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 i lm like Raimond
Krumme's drawn i lm Rope Dancers appeals to me as it takes a simple idea of two
sketchy men tied together by a red line. The i lm follows their attempt to escape
each other, and in the process they play with every perspective possible on a l at
piece of paper. The series of gags is given dynamics by an increasing desperation,