Different Techniques - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 133

particularly the race to the pick-up point, in my Timegate feature project, which got fi nanced and partially
fi lmed in 1977. No, I wasn't ready to move into another fi lm before fi nishing Snag of Time . Slightly later I
started work on the 20,000 Leagues project.
TB - I got as far as a few key drawings and a thirty-minute script, until I realised that thirty minutes
wasn't going to be enough. I fi nished a wire-armatured Jesus puppet as well, but didn't shoot anything.
As I realised how much I had bitten off, I got discouraged and disbanded the idea, moving on to more
manageable ideas. I have no stills from my work in high school. I never thought of archiving at the time,
though I remember my mother telling me I should. How right she was. I'm still attracted to the idea of
selfl ess, sacrifi cial love (such as the story of Calvary), and like using those themes in my work today.
When I realised I wasn't going to be able to complete an overambitious project, I simply moved on.
I always stayed busy writing stories and making puppets, and of course animating.
KD - I planned a lot; the fi lm was based on my neighbour's dog called 'Crackers' and he was hilarious,
but he was bored senseless being in the house all day. I remembered I wanted silence in the house, just
the dog. My tutor, Joe King, said 'it's more silent to have a quiet ticking clock than just silence'.
I've always remembered that! Yes, other themes reoccur which revolve somehow around death!
DC - I shot three minutes of super eight to use up the fi lm. Not much planning, but it still exists and the
stills were of better exposure and focus than the movie.
SB - The fi rst fi lm was a disaster, but it got us interested and wanting to learn more. I got to meet Mark Baker
who kindly lent me a copy of his The Hill Farm and he photocopied Bob Godfrey's Do it Yourself Animation
Topic . I now had a guide of how to do animation (even if it was 2D), but I didn't have my own camera.
TD - We planned it all; it was entirely our idea. We shot it all in our dorm studio. Living there made
shooting our fi rst fi lm possible. Among other facilities, our dorm had a common room that had been
converted into a shooting studio, which we used. If we were doing something other than that, if we were
trying to explore meaningful themes I don't think we would have fi nished. There just wasn't time for that
kind of love and refl ection. I was happy doing the physical process of animation, which was (and is) still
strangely numinous for me.
RH - Back to the Drawing Board took a song from three musical fi lms, with scripted scenes tying them
together. Although the songs were restaged, the whole fi lm was entirely my own idea. For its opening
titles I used music by Leroy Anderson, whose music I later used in my fi rst animated fi lm, The Typewriter .
JC - I'm not sure my early work was ever a spoof or homage. I was infl uenced by the humour of Paul
Dreissen. A later work, Gary Glitter Changed my Life , did have a stylistic homage to Paddington . I used
2D cut-out crowds in a concert scene, keeping the main character 3D. I wanted to produce fi lms that
were funny, intelligent and accessible to people - not too 'arty farty'. There are themes reoccurring in
my work, for example the look or style. Though mainly derived from the need to keep things simple and
cheap to construct it is also a look I like - a theatrical set on a plain background.
DS - The two fi rst fi lms were Godzilla and Trash (or is it the other way around?) Both used cut-outs and
chalk and yes the fi rst inspired us to do the other, equally formless!