On the Set - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 229

is downright impossible, as is timing a gesture, when you are not certain what the other
puppet is doing. One can happily animate a puppet to the other, only to i nd that the other
has casually wandered of , leaving you looking awkward, in the middle of an empty gesture.
Even if animators do get on, communicating almost telepathically, it still takes a lot of valuable
studio time to work out who is doing what, who does it i rst, and where, and it is simply
more sensible for one animator to do the whole shot. This can mean one animator unfairly
having a dozen characters running about madly, while another has one puppet in a simple
close-up. The subsequent dif erence in the secondage shot that day is hard to explain to the
accountants. Usually, things balance themselves out, but there is a great joy, for me at least, in
working alone on a set. The director has explained everything, and you are left to concentrate,
knowing exactly what is happening. Two puppets shaking hands can be timed with a precision
impossible with another animator. Timing reactions between puppets is disorientating when a
moment on i lm in a split second takes a good half hour to i lm, and having a second animator
will only confuse things even more.
Puppets pick up on nuances from other puppets when you work by yourself. You can adjust
the whole composition of a shot if it goes astray. Trying all the various permutations, there
are many advantages to working alone, especially if you are able to do the whole sequence.
Inconsistencies in performance are less noticeable outside complete sequences. If dif erent
animators do consecutive shots, the dif erent animation styles and rhythms are very obvious.
It is extraordinary how dif erently a gesture can be interpreted and timed from one animator
to another, and it takes a good animation director to set a rigid lexicon of physical behaviour
and body language at the beginning of a show, pulling all these dif erences together into some
consistency. This is no dif erent from dancers and actors, who all have their own way of moving
or speaking, even with set choreography.
Animators working alone are cut of from the other sets by heavy black curtains, which
have the practical value of preventing any light spillage, but also help the animator to focus
on his own space, often oblivious to the outside world. With personal music players, animators
can cut themselves of even more. Outsiders may i nd it odd to hear so much music being
played in a working studio. It depends on the music and how intrusive it is, but far from
being annoying, it helps to block out other distractions. Personally, when working I prefer
light classical music playing, invariably ballet or even opera. Clear words, especially the radio,
distract me as I want to listen, but gentle music is a real aid to concentration and a gauge of
progression. I cannot walk away in the middle of a shot and take a telephone call, preferring
to i lm in a complete chunk of time. Walking away feels odd, and feels a little rude to the
puppet as well … very bizarre. This is all about me seeing animation as a performance, and a
performance that already has too many interruptions. Some of my better animation has been
of a move-click-move-click-move procedure. Having done the preparation, I just want to
get on with it, ignoring the doubts that playback can suggest. Other animators, however, can
happily take a break and carry on a good while later, and you cannot see the join.