Shaping Ideas - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 112

Screen Play
The starting idea of Screen Play .
Visual storytelling
Screen Play was tricky to structure as it was, in ef ect, one long sustained shot, that once started
could not be stopped. The rhythm and the dynamics had to be right i rst time, as they could not
be helped by editing. Foolhardy, of course, but exciting. It seems that I was afraid to give any
control to the editors, and maybe I was, but now I happily invite their essential collaboration.
Screen Play was developed wanting to include all manner of dif erent visual languages. As a child
I adored transformation scenes in pantomimes and big musicals. They were more magical than
anything I had seen on screen, as they were happening in front of me, contained in the box of
the proscenium, and if Screen Play wasn't exactly about transformation scenes, it did need to
l ow from scene to scene without ever cutting, a constant thought in everything I do.
I wanted to treat the story as a memory piece but hadn't initially worked out how to separate
the main character from his memories. A circle seemed appropriate, much as sumo
wrestlers have a circle to contain their action, and also a reminder of the Willow
Pattern plate. I gave myself the convention that anything outside the circle was
a comment, and anything inside was happening in the reality, well memory, of the
i lm. I cheated a bit, with the reality spilling out over the circle, but essentially it
was a good convention, and helped to dei ne the narrative. Whenever the narrator
character crossed into the circle, he became a character, and didn't use the sign