Shaping Ideas - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 113

language. This came from watching sign-language performers busily working at the side of the
stage; observing but still performing. I i nd having dramatic conventions a good shorthand to
help with clarity and storytelling.
Screen Play and its narrative defi ning circle.
As in Next , I didn't want to waste precious screen seconds by having the characters walk on
and of the wide stage the whole time, so the moving screens allowed me to reveal a character
instantly, wherever I wanted. As a painted screen slides by, the same character is revealed,
as if stepping of a screen, a story coming to life, being animated. The whole i lm was about
using many dif erent means to tell a story, and as in Next , where I manipulated Shakespeare
manipulating a puppet that in turn manipulated a puppet, here just as many levels are going on.
Working out the screens' movements took months of shifting bits of paper, coming up with
surprising shapes and patterns, making the whole thing look as if it could happen on a stage,
but then pushing it considerably further. There is a clear structure to the movement of the
screens, starting with a simple slide across the stage and building to a complex use of the
double revolve and all eight screens.
The layout of the revolving stage came after much i ddling about with simple cut-
outs, and thanks to the mechanics of some propeller-makers, it was a superb piece
of engineering, allowing me all manner of smooth transitions, hopefully echoing
memories l owing from one to another. I love the way that the stage can do this so
well, and how i lm uses camera moves to produce the same ef ect. The last section
of Screen Play was an acknowledgement of a dif erent way of telling stories, a
much more cinematic way. In theatre, which has so many slightly dif erent points