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puppets I have not warmed to, and this resulted in only a decent mechanical performance.
With others, there's a two-way emotional and physical connection, with the puppet defying its
base materials. Those moments when a puppet lives are what we're after.
I'm often asked what qualities an animator needs, well, that's a big question. If you're bored
easily this is most dei nitely not the profession for you. The process is usually compared to an
elephant being in labour for many, many months and then i nally giving birth to an ant. Now
an ant is a glorious, complex creation, but it is still tiny. Unless you i nd said ant beautiful, look
elsewhere. If you have no imagination, look elsewhere. If you cannot tell stories, dei nitely look
elsewhere.
The essential quality to have is not so much that of a performer, as I know many animators
who would curl up and die if a spotlight was turned on them, but it's having a performer's
sensibilities. It's knowing how to use all the resources of animation (movement, rhythm,
timing, gesture, design, music, etc.) to tell a story directly to the audience. We have to be
multiskilled: we have to be a choreographer, an expert in body language, we have to be
musical, we have to be a director, an editor, we need an artist's eye for composition and a
sculptor's eye for a strong storytelling pose, we need stamina, we have to be a juggler keeping
many dif erent balls in the air at the same time; the list goes on, but above all we have to
be interesting storytellers, and for every story told there has to be an audience. I have seen
animators not immediately concerned about the audience, even our audience of the camera.
Much as we may like to make i lms for ourselves, there's little point in making them without
an audience to see them. Likewise, there's little point in doing exquisite animation if little
is communicated. Sound and fury signifying nothing. If our reason to make i lms is purely
indulgent catharsis, we might as well sit with a therapist. We need the desire to tell a story, to
communicate, and to make it as interesting and as clear as possible. A lot of my own work is
full of references, oblique puns and conventions, but I try to question whether that is being
obscure and pretentious, or whether it does actually provide an extra facet to the story.
There is a distinct dif erence between being a mysterious, teasing storyteller and being
downright obscure. With the imaginative freedom that stop motion allows, I'm sure we have
all been guilty of the latter.
Film grammar
Being an animator is not just about being able to move things to tell a story. The animator
has to have an awareness of the much bigger picture, of the design, the pacing, the style, and
so on. The animator has to be a i lm-maker, with a thorough understanding of i lm grammar
and composition. While busy animating away on a certain shot, you have to be aware of how
this shot will i t into the next shot, and how the composition l ows. I would love every college
to drum into the students on the i rst day (after having shown them the 1933 King Kong , of
course) just exactly how some shots work next to each other and some do not, and
why. Cutting from a wide shot to a close-up is a very unnatural experience, and it
has to be made easy for the eye. It's not helpful if the character in the wide shot is
standing on the right of frame looking to the left, and then when the camera cuts
to the close-up, the continuous action has the same character on the left of frame
looking to the right. This will jar enormously and utterly disorientate the viewer.
This may be obvious, but it's an easy mistake to make.
 
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