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fact that they have built one at all is encouraging, and more than I've done, but the pride with
which these puppets are brought out as some sort of of ering says something about our need
for puppets. Festivals are certainly the place to be refreshed about our craft.
I cannot pretend that festivals and the sixty awards for the i lms have brought me work (most
are a celebration, not a market), but they have brought a lot of satisfaction and a stuf ed
address book. I'm not one for working a room. Naively, I hope the i lms will sell themselves,
without the liquid-fuelled promises made in the early hours at some foreign hotel. I may well
have lost out, as I cannot do the essential networking, but I would feel that I'd cheated if I got
a contract through turning the uninvited charm on some unsuspecting broadcaster. What
awards do mean is a certain undeniable respect and credibility from your peers, and that is
priceless. On several occasions a i lm of mine has been up for an award, and in the aftermath of
the production I could not af ord to go. One occasion, where a i lm was winning a Grand Prix,
saw me slumped on the sofa back home, in less than buoyant spirits about not working. I made
an acceptance speech down the phone. Possibly festivals without the pressure of awards and
competitions are more friendly.
Festivals, and i lm schools, have been supremely generous to me and have taken me to places
I would never have otherwise gone. Animation does seem to travel, not just geographically,
but across class and cultures. I can count on one hand the true holidays I've taken, but stop
motion has i lled my passport with interesting stamps. Only Russia doesn't have any pins on my
wallchart, although I nearly got to Moscow to direct a play, in Russian, about a great Russian
violinist, with one of Russia's great actors. It took some thinking before I said yes (fears of being
exposed or out of one's depth haunt us all), but the woman who had invited me suf ered a
bereavement, and the project ran out of steam. The fact that I am a stop motion animator and
someone saw something in my work that made me suitable for such a project was l attering
indeed. Such calls should be savoured. At the risk of sounding Chekhovian, one day I'll get to
Moscow. I can't complain about lack of places I have been to, and often giggle to think that a
peculiar and generally rather useless ability to communicate something through inanimate
objects has taken me round the world and introduced me to some truly exotic places and
equally exotic people. A shared passion goes a long way.
Theatre work
While writing this topic I have been involved with several plays at my local non-professional
theatre, the amazing Garrick Playhouse. I say amazing as the company put on twelve
productions a year, each in just i ve weeks of evenings, and invariably the standard is pretty
extraordinary. Working there has allowed me some considerable creativity that I may not
otherwise have had. I usually direct and design my own productions, and have a pretty well-
supplied workshop at hand, with a comprehensive wardrobe.
I approach each play with the same detail and preparation as I would animation.
Although the environment and the audience are dif erent, I set out to tell the story
in the most interesting way I can. I'm not a director who will duplicate another
production, nor just put a show on, but I will go back to the core of the piece
and try to i nd something fresh. I have never done a literal production, with an
architecturally solid set. I don't have the draughtsmanship skills necessary, and I am
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