Getting Moving - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 212

KD - I did a fi lm where my character was walking in the wind and it was amazing … then the computer
crashed and lost the lot. We were all just standing there shocked that it was gone - someone piped up
that it was some of the best he had seen. My worst was when I was trying to have my character leap out
of a box and fl oat. It was so ambitious but I just didn't have the tools to do it and it was so frustrating as
I knew what I wanted to do but it just wouldn't happen!
RC - Haven't done my best piece yet … hopefully I'm still improving my art. Worst piece would probably
be the fi rst character commercial I did. It wasn't that it was terrible or anything; I just had a lot to learn.
Some of what I didn't like was the staging, which was out of my hands at that early point in my career.
There were shots that had emotional connections that needed to be made in short close-ups and medium
shots that were boarded as long shots. Most absurd? Well a frog holding up a pizza would be in there,
as would kids being devoured by giant Venus fl ytrap plants (cel animation for Creepshow 2 ), as would
a crawling severed hand ( Evil Dead 2 ). Absurd in the overall sense, but perfectly normal in their given
venues.
DC - My best work has been with Rev. Clement Hedges on Were-Rabbit . He was so tense and emotional
and made you feel what he was feeling! My worst work is when I'm tired and unimaginative and the
puppet won't help you or is being downright unhelpful! Then I get lazy and just want to get the shot
done with no frills so I can go home. I did a shot where nobody moved apart from the Vicar, saying
'Beware, the moon!' There were about ten of them and they didn't even blink, because I was so tired. The
director, Steve Box, was very unimpressed but there was no time to redo it. I've recently animated slugs
fl oating on a cocktail umbrella blowing a raspberry in Flushed Away ! It's a funny life but it's all I know. I
animated a fi ve-foot globe populated entirely with Tefal frying pans full of food dancing and chatting for
an advert that no one remembers.
AW - My best animation is the wolf coming down the cliff in Peter and the Wolf . I've made thousands of
bad shots but I couldn't reshoot them because of schedule and budget pressure. Nothing is absurd to
animate.
SB - I've yet to do my best, the worst I have too many to choose from.
RH - The best I have done has been a scene on Rupert , where I animated a whole group of characters
clearing up a mess in the woods. The worst was my fi rst shot of Tiny in Little Robots , the fi rst series
I worked on. It was so slow and shaky, with no strong poses - I wish it didn't exist today! This is a
testament to my progress since then. The most absurd character I ever animated was Aunt Tulip in Fifi
and the Flowertots . She was a lovely looking puppet, but extremely diffi cult to animate well!
TA - The shot that I'm proudest of has to be my wedding table scene from Corpse Bride . This is the scene
where the camera slowly tracks across the long dinner table while bad guy Barkis delivers his self-
indulgent speech to eleven half-asleep guests. Now this is not the best animation I've ever done, nor is
any one bit of it particularly challenging or satisfying. It was damn boring to do! It was about taking a
challenge and rising to the occasion. Scheduled to take me four weeks, two seconds a day, with repetitive
subtle movement throughout, this was like running some animation marathon! There wasn't an option to
reshoot if the worst happened and the DOP jokingly dared me, 'if I didn't make a single mistake he'd take
me out to dinner!'
Fuelled at the notion of a free McDonalds, I set about clambering around the large set on work that was
genuinely intricate (i.e. knock the puppet by mistake and you've ruined everything!) and my biggest