Preparation - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 186

Visual concepts
The fi nale from concept artwork by Colin Batty for Noye's Fludde .
Few things give me more pleasure than what would be my desert-island luxury, a toy theatre.
I enjoy looking at the set models from the great designers, but I have never had the chance
to collaborate closely with such designers. I got close when a i lm of Benjamin Britten's Noye's
Fludde hovered briel y into view. A big-name choreographer was briefed, but even then the
designer was a little confused as how this would work, as I clearly have such strong visual ideas,
which are so inseparable from the direction. This can be a problem, as I i nd it easy to come up
with striking visuals and conventions and concepts, but I don't necessarily have the technical
expertise to execute them. All my set models are pretty basic in construction, but are quite eye
catching. I would be more than happy to work with a designer who could take my conventions
and concepts even further, and i nesse them more than I am able to. The ideas are the easy bit;
it's the practical realisation, the measurements that I struggle with.
Stop motion animators, and animators in general, are spoilt in that having made
our own short i lms, we're likely to have written, designed, even done the music,
animated and directed, and as such the vision has an integrity and cohesion. Film
and series do not always work that way. I don't understand how a director can be
presented with a design for a set or i lm by the art director or designer, and then
be expected to get on and direct it. Design, to me, is such an integral part of the
storytelling that I cannot separate it, or all the other elements, from the direction.