Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
A detail of one of the scene-setting screens, illustrated by Barbara Biddulph.
of view, although all one basic wide shot, the director has to tell the audience where to look
through composition, colour, design, music, performance, movement and stillness. On i lm, the
camera can physically move from wide shot to close-up and is not contained by one general
viewpoint. This leads to a totally dif erent way of storytelling. My i lms lie somewhere
in between.
Rigoletto
Musical storytelling
This piece follows the structure of the opera, with considerable liberties taken to allow for the half-
hour length and a family-orientated television audience. Thankfully, no commercial breaks were
required. Condensing the piece from over two hours to thirty minutes was not totally impossible.
Much of the music went and the plot was simplii ed, but big chunks of the score had been written
for the practicalities of performing in a theatre. We justii ed losing some of this music by telling the
story i lmically. There is music covering scene changes and intervals, music as entr'actes and music
to give particular singers a break, which becomes redundant on i lm, let alone with puppets. Even
so, I would have liked an hour to do the work justice. It's a complicated plot, and in condensing it I
asked the audience to concentrate on every frame, as what I couldn't communicate in narrative, I
tried to convey visually. Animation, particularly my animation, usually tries to tell complex stories
that are probably too big for the time available, and that leads to some dense storytelling. There is
a lot going on, which is both my i lms' strengths and their weaknesses.
Whereas Verdi had time to set up the debauched world and characters, I tried to
show the hierarchy of the society instantly through the costumes, in particular the
masks they wore. I tried to show literally who was above whom, by situating the
whole i lm on a craggy mountain with the Duke lording it above everyone else
and poor Rigoletto down in the depths. Colours and textures distinguished the
two dif erent worlds. The more that could be communicated visually the better,
as editing Verdi is not as straightforward as saying 'I'll have two minutes of that,
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