Shaping Ideas - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 110

entrance, however short. I don't always have substantial sets, so I tend to use light. As a
character is revealed by the light, we're of .
The pacing of Next has enough pleasing highs and lows, while generally getting more frantic
and inventive. Constructing the music with Stuart Gordon, the composer, we had set a
mathematical beat. Each 'play' was worked out as a phase of 160 frames of eight counts, with
the action held on the seventh, allowing a tableau. This could have led to a dull, constant
rhythm but variations of musical colours and orchestrations surge towards the climax.
In my mind when writing Next was the Pressburger Powell classic, A Matter of Life and Death ,
where a character's life hangs in the balance while the jury makes the vital decision. The
outsider judging and watching the main character is an unconscious theme in all my work.
Maybe it's me seeking approval for my work being worth something. I wanted to give the
i lm gravitas so that it wasn't just a series of gags, but this aspect was probably the weakest
element. If I'd had the time, I would have developed this with other characters such as
Leonardo and Mozart, waiting in the wings, ready to strut their stuf . This, though, would have
meant an extra puppet. As it is, I rather shoehorned another element into an already crammed
story, and the audiences don't need a throwaway twist at the end. It is clumsy, and I would
love to reshoot the ending; I should have just left it as an audition. I needed a producer
out in the auditorium providing necessary tension and the audience's perspective. The
suggestion, though, of a long line of artists waiting to audition would have provided a
satisfactory sting.
How was your fi rst fi lm? Did you structure it as you wanted or did you
compromise? How was working in a team?
JD - Other than an ill-fated attempt to get funding for a puppet fi lm of The Firebird , my fi rst professional
fi lm attempts were in the live-action/animation genre. Although I got rave reviews for a feature
screenplay I wrote and the budget that Karen and I put together (one completion-bonding company
asked permission to use our budget as an example of how it should be done), the independent
distributors were closing down faster than we could get submissions to them. The result is that the only
dramatic live action of any length that I've directed is for a ten-minute 'trailer' for a proposed Sherlock
Holmes adventure, West of Kashmir . Some of it actually came up to my expectations. What didn't was cut
out - a luxury that one has when making a fi ctitious trailer.
I like some aspects of working with a team of people, but learned the hard way that my dream of making
a fi lm with friends was misguided, since they wanted more control and input than was possible on a fi lm
for which I was responsible to the backer, as well as to my own muse.
I fi nd I have little patience with those who drain my energy by attempting to apply their attitudes to a
project that is not of their devising. As an example, I told a production manager to 'please leave your
attitude at home' when she challenged my attempt to include props she considered 'politically incorrect'
(a bear rug, for example), which were entirely appropriate for our nineteenth century set.