Getting Personal - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 67

It's not hard to see why. A devastatingly simple story, told mainly by strong visuals, and at its
heart a moving and private relationship between a boy and an inanimate object. What's amazing
is the amount of expression derived from that most simple of objects, a balloon. Its movements
or lack of them convey more feeling than pages of dialogue. Surely this is what most animators
strive for. Mark Hall remembers that 'the intense emotions generated by an inanimate object in its
death throes and the i nal triumph so simply expressed have stayed with me for life. I was in tears
then and would be now if I saw it tomorrow. I only learnt later how many people in our industry
were inl uenced by that i lm. Brian Cosgrove was at the same showing at Art College.
Did you have an invisible friend or object as a child, that you imbued
with personality?
JD - No for invisible friend, and yes for the inanimate object, because all my puppets had personalities of
some sort. I could say that my puppets were taken from me like 'Rosebud' and my life was damaged, but
that wouldn't be true. Actually, they got lost. There was a teenage moment when I burned my animation
puppets due to my parent's incessant apprehensions about my interests in fi lms and animation. I then
decided that my parents shouldn't tell me how to live my life, and started rebuilding the puppets.
DC - I had an imaginary daredevil stunt acrobat spaceman type guy who raced next to our car on long
journeys coping dramatically but effortlessly with whatever obstacle was thrown at him. Based on a toy I
had with magnets on his feet, he had all manner of contraptions to help his travel.
JC - I still have 'Pink', my extremely faded, threadbare little teddy. She looks after me.
Most boys were busy building Airi x kits
of planes and tanks, or collecting stickers
about Bobby Charlton. I was collecting the
Airi x Historical Figures, such as Henry VIII,
Oliver Cromwell and especially Joan of Arc.
This seven-inch i gure got painstakingly
assembled, with a small i rework inside her.
Shamefully, a pyre was built and she was tied
to the stake, and as I challenged her about
the voices, she met a spectacularly messy
and noisy end. In Next , the Henry VI plays are
represented by the small gruesome section
of Joan, rather than the wider sweep of the
histories. My limited knowledge of history
was as dangerous as my limited knowledge of
special ef ects. My enthusiasm for
acting out dramatic scenarios was
not so limited.
Joan of Arc leaves the stage.