I’m currently in my first ever stop motion class, and out of 15 weeks allotted for the class, 10 of them are devoted to the production of one final project.
That means that, at least two weeks from now, I will have to have a completed script and storyboard to put forth into action. And then I’ll work on the film for 10 weeks.
So far, I have found this to be a very daunting experience. I feel pressure from all aspects of creation—pressure to create an interesting narrative, pressure to make an interesting character, pressure to have the dexterity, nimbleness, and patience to create the sets and characters that will star in my hilarious, tragic, life-affirming stop-motion animation. And, on top of it all, there is the pressure to actually learn how to stop-motion animate.
I knew that if I didn’t start brainstorming early, I would inevitably descend into catatonia under the (admittedly self-imposed) stress. Over winter break, I took it upon myself to watch as many Vimeo Staff Pick and Short of the Week-featured stop motion films, trying to gather ideas for my upcoming film. This was ultimately fruitless on the idea front, though I was very entertained for a few weeks. I also collected a few favorite stop motion films and animators, which I will now share with all of you (and Tom) on the Internet, because my IRL friends don’t like to listen to me talk about this stuff.
The first film I fell in love with was “Benigni,” an eight-minute student film about a man’s friendship with his tumor. The narrative structure is nothing terribly special—the events are almost predictable—but wimhat makes the story so memorable are the characters and the oddly-specific details (like how the protagonist is a xylophone player). It’s a story told without dialogue, a tragic and funny film about friendship and loneliness. I think I’ve seen it five times so far.
Benigni from Elli Vuorinen on Vimeo.
Another film I loved was “Oh, Willy” by stop motion duo Marc and Emma. It’s 20 minutes long…and I actually only recently watched it all the way through. Aesthetically, it’s stunning—the film feels like a series of carefully-planned mise-en-scenes, a delicate and puffy world inhabited by delicate and puffy characters. I read in an interview that they made it all out of wool, and I’m considering doing that for my characters as well. The lighting is gorgeous and feels very filmic. Honestly, I almost feel like the story is secondary—there is so much emphasis on detail that I become visually enthralled by what’s on screen, forgetting to pay attention to the plot.
But the story is told without dialogue anyway, so I don’t really feel bogged down by plot-related details.
Oh Willy… from Marc and Emma on Vimeo.
Most of the films I watched contained no dialogue, relying instead on music, sound, and character animation to convey emotion and tell the story. And as an animation student, this was a particularly exciting revelation, because stop motion lip-sync seems incredibly hard to do.
But I began thinking about “Mary and Max,” a claymation film by Adam Elliot and a (comparatively) old favorite. What I love about Elliot’s film is his attention to idiosyncracies, like in “Benigni.” I really love films about weird people, and I really love weird details that describe weird people.
I started researching Adam Elliot and came across a few of his short films. His film “Harvie Krumpet” won the Oscar in 2004 and is delightful to watch. What I love most about this film (and “Mary and Max”) is the narration. It feels childlike, storybook-like, but it explores pretty dark and morbid events and emotions. And he gets around lip sync by having the narrator describe what is happening in the minds of the characters on screen as it relates to the narrator himself (like in “Uncle,” “Cousin,” or “Brother”). I sort of like the idea of an unobjective narrator.
I envy Elliot because he seems to have it all figured out. From his earliest shorts to his most recent feature film, there is a cohesive line of thought and visual style, a clear theme he explores in all his films. And I envy him because I’m still trying to figure it all out (can you tell?).
Finally, my latest inspiration is actually a 2D animation by Don Hertzfeldt. I saw his Oscar-nominated animation “World of Tomorrow” in theaters this past week, and, were I not with school acquaintances but rather alone in my bed in the dark at 3 am, I could have cried hot, heavy tears. It’s a beautiful, tragic, funny, life-affirming film—indeed, it’s everything I’d love to make in life. This film (and the interviews with Don Hertzfeldt I subsequently devoured) is what fully convinced me of my love for narrative structure within experimental animation.
The animation itself is simplistic. They are stick characters. There is no clear ground, no clear dimensionality. And there are no elaborate sets, unique angles, delicious details. Whereas “Oh, Willy” felt carefully beautiful, “World of Tomorrow” in its animated state felt more like a vessel for the story.
Hertzfeldt said in an interview that above all is story. He refines and refines the story and creates the animation based around the story. I know that sometimes when I’m animating or creating something, I find myself distracted by the visuals and, at the end, regretting my lack of interest in refining the story. My indecisiveness prevents me from ever creating anything too specific (because I can never figure it all out by the due date), and on top of that, I am enchanted by the visually nebulous. But I always regret it in the end, and I really admire what Hertzfeldt does, so I think I will try out his way of doing things.
WORLD OF TOMORROW from don hertzfeldt on Vimeo.
In all aspects of my life, I find myself frequently flitting back and forth from one camp of thought to another, unable to decidedly place my foot in one argument without envying the presumed resolution of other side. Lately, what I thought was my preference for abstract animation has come into competition with a preference for story, a realization that beauty without narrative or meaning feels hollow. But, I don’t know. I’m starting to think that my definition of “narrative” needs to expand, and that abstraction and narrative do not have to be mutually exclusive.
The other day, my internship supervisor said to me—after showing us interns a series of highly experimental films (Maya Deren, anyone?)—that a narrative is simply the repetition of a character. So, you can indeed have experimental narrative films. If there is something that the audience can identify, then it is a narrative.
This seems like a pretty intuitive concept, but I really hadn’t consciously realized this until my supervisor offhandedly made that comment. So what separates narrative from experimental, then? Is it purely aesthetics? Abstraction? Is there a difference at all?
I’m still not sure, and I don’t think I really care anymore.
I think I am most drawn to experimental animation because it’s different. When I first started exploring experimental animation, I found myself calling anything different or weird-looking experimental. And I felt cooler for telling people that my primary focus at school was in “experimental animation—you know, animation as a fine art.” And I rejected popular animations on TV in favor of independently-produced animations on Vimeo.
But I’m beginning to realize that the “surprise” factor can manifest in either the visual style or the narrative. It’s just harder, I think, to write a surprising story. And I’ve begun to realize that my natural aversion to anything remotely cliche has paralyzed me from creating what I really want to create.
But I’m trying to make amends. I’ve been dipping in and out of Robert McKee’s “Story” for the last month or so, and it’s been immensely helpful at putting into words what nearly all movie-goers intuitively understand but cannot apply themselves. He focuses on feature films, though, and I think my preferences are more tailored towards short films.
I don’t necessarily have a specific project in mind that I can complete as a result of this analysis/incoherent blob of words, but I think that these thoughts could be applicable to my final film. I’m interested in how narrative can function within experimental art and animation, to see how they may detract from or augment one another.
W/r/t my stop motion animation, yes I’ve written an outline, yes I’ve created a character, no I haven’t done a storyboard/script yet. But it’s coming along.
experimental explorations 