Getting Personal - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 75

DS - Pete and I had been to Ivor Wood, mostly for a chat and to talk about equipment and models. Our
early feedback came from the Vision On team, especially Clive Doig, Patrick Dowling and later Chris
Pilkington. The phrase 'I'm not sure this sequence quite works' stills rings in my head and we would
then discuss why and what was needed to make it work. Very often this was before we shot stuff and
sometimes afterwards. Working on a show that was going on air put a rocket up your backside to make
sure the short pieces did 'work' and also stood up in the context of other work on the show. Pete had a
natural talent for animation based on a keen eye for fi gurative drawing and observation.
Heading to Chorlton
I met Chorlton, with typical bad timing, on a train leaving Manchester, heading to Pitlochry for
a long summer season at the theatre there. Reading an article in the TV Times as Manchester
faded away, about Mark Hall, Brian Cosgrove and a group of unusually skilled artists setting up
an animation studio (with both 2D and 3D under one roof ) in Chorlton cum Hardy, animation
suddenly seemed something that might satisfy my needs for performing. I'd had not an
hour's training, but watching Chorlton rushing around those great sets, I thought, with great
arrogance, that I could contribute something to that.
The movement of Chorlton was lively, if gloriously haphazard, but that was the joy of the series.
I wanted to be involved, but I was heading to Scotland. Even with the routine of long days at
the theatre, I managed some animation. I had my super 8 mm camera that had only been used
for some strange homage to Georges Méliès. While experimenting with some clumsy stop
motion using a shop-bought poseable Pink Panther , I wrote to Mark Hall asking about Chorlton
and the Wheelies . Mark remembers being taken aback by the letter. You'll have caught some of
my verbosity here and this letter to Mark was more an enthusiastic epistle running to several
pages, proclaiming what I could bring to the company! Ouch! In one of those life-changing
coincidences, Mark happened to be watching salmon in Pitlochry a couple of weeks later.
In between performances of Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking , a gorgeous production of Cyrano
de Bergerac (where my obsession with imbuing objects with meaning allowed me to drop
falling leaves, poignantly landing on Roxanne's tapestry on given lines) and an awful play about
Bonnie Prince Charlie, I animated relentlessly. I started a pattern of doing more work after my
usual work, much to the amusement and considerable interest of the cast and crew. After each
performance, we would change the set ready for the show, so I would wander home way after
midnight, enveloped in the thick mist, heavy with fumes from the Famous Grouse distillery.
After half a mile I was quite literally drunk, and probably all my animation was performed in a
rather alcoholic haze …. I'm probably not alone there.
I churned out idea after idea and eventually launched into the Twelve Days of
Christmas . A ridiculously ambitious project, but I can see why I was attracted to it.
I've always looked behind iconic pieces, wondering at their meaning and subtext.
Something about the escalating structure of this song appealed. How were all
the bizarre activities and characters connected? I was going to use way too many
complicated cut-outs, and adding up how many I might need the total was 364,