Getting Personal - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 65

develop in dance-like sections, choreographed, usually, to Herrmann's astonishingly apt and
colourful music. I'm not sure when the music was developed, but it's an integral part of the
scenes, perfectly complementing the animation, especially the skeleton i ght in Jason ; it is just
right using rattles and cacophony alongside moments of stillness and tension.
Toys
I had cuddly toys, teddy bears and Action Men as a kid, and gave them adventures most dei nitely
dif erent from other kids. They were imbued with strange and complex characters. My sister
was more sensible and grounded in the real world, but the house was full of stuf ed toys and
wonderful pets. None survived the way that Pooh, my teddy, has loyally stayed with me for over
i ve decades. There, it's easy to say 'loyally, giving a lump of squashed battered cloth a personality
and character traits, but I'd be mortii ed to lose him. Alright, there's a history associated with
him and he has travelled as much as I have, but it's not sentimental nonsense that keeps me
looking after him, happily and naturally chatting to him. He has been a companion and, I feel,
has absorbed part of my life and my experience, through some misty-eyed osmosis, so that
he's forever part of me, or an extension of me. To not have him around is odd. It's not a security-
blanket idea, but more a way of externalising thoughts, and by projecting ideas and character
onto him, I can help make sense of what's rattling around in my head. In this respect I understand
the relationship between Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. I have always found it terrifyingly easily to
give inanimate objects a persona. Pooh is inanimate, but with a huge persona.
The indefatigable Pooh and similar sentiments from The Mitten by Katchnanov.
Many people think nothing of having apparently solid invisible friends. I didn't, but
perhaps puppets fuli l this role. I understand anyone who makes friends with a six-
foot invisible rabbit ( Harvey ) or a balloon ( The Red Balloon ). This French 1957 short
i lm of a bullied child befriended by a red balloon has been hugely inl uential for
many animators, and both Mark Hall and Brian Cosgrove cite it as an inspiration.