Production - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 287

that day. With your own i lm, the shots have been in your head for months, and with features
that you can discuss and plan. Very dif erent approaches.
Shooting out of sequence and animating your puppets to match an already i lmed shot will
lose this freshness. You see the puppet working itself into the necessary position rather than
letting it l ow, and when a movement looks contrived, it's dead. In reality, the schedules of
features may seem a luxury, with a whole day to shoot a second or two, but a lot of that time is
spent in i ne-tuning the lighting or practising a camera move. Production values on a feature
are that much higher than for television series, and take more ef ort and time to get them right.
It is common for an animator to be standing by all day while a set is lit, and then come
four o'clock, the shot is ready; that is not the best time of day suddenly to give your best.
Is it easy for you to move from the luxury of schedule and detail of a
feature to a more commercial TV series? Are you able to maintain a
satisfactory standard?
JD - For TV commercials, we always had much more time and money (per unit of screen time) than for
any feature with which I was involved.
TB - I don't like the fast pace of a TV stop motion show. It's just too gruelling. Now that I am almost
fi fty, I want to slow down a bit and have a social life. I enjoy teaching a great deal - it affords me the
opportunity to have some time off to work on my own fi lms, sculpt and paint. I would rather work on my
own fi lms than someone else's, because I consider myself a storyteller fi rst.
RC - I started in commercials, and that's been the bulk of my work. So, yes, I transition well, and deliver
quality work on commercial deadlines.
DC - Yes, I can do whatever the job requires, but I never have freedom from my mortgage and family
commitments to pick and choose the job particularly. I view the job for what it is (feature fi lm, series
work, advertisement) and who it's for (adult or kids audience) and how much it pays and then look at
what they (production) want from me (footage, quality, etc.), then I have to work out what is possible
and what I am prepared to produce within all of this and still get home in time to play with my kids' toys
before they go to bed!
SB - I probably work better in the commercial bracket, it's what I know best.
RH - I have only worked on TV series so far, and I have become very used to the production methods
and timescale of series work. It would be nice to work on a feature and concentrate more on quality, but
I have found a balance between quality and quantity on series work and I am comfortable with it.
JC - It is hard to jump between projects with different requirements. A feature has the luxury of time
to produce work of a high standard, though there are still time pressures. On features you have a huge
support network, teams of riggers and puppet-makers to help. You have to slow down and try to make
every frame as perfect as possible. The pressures of series work are different. You have punishing
schedules. There are smaller teams to support you; often you have to make do. There is great skill in
being a successful series animator; to know when to hold a pose, how to cut corners and still provide a
good performance and tell the story.