A common preconception (among at least the British public) is that you can only use animation for whimsical purposes. Animation used to explain anything serious would just be trivialising the subject. This makes my blood boil. Fortunately people’s minds do seem to be changing, if very slowly. Films like Persepolis and Waltz with Bashir (which to my shame I’ve still not seen) must be helping change the tide surely?
Personally, I’ve also worked on films about sex education, legal aid and even health and safety which combine a serious message with something that isn’t going to bore the socks off the audience.
Further evidence to the cause is also supplied by a fellow Midlands animator Samantha Moore. Sam makes the most wonderful animated documentaries, from the jolly and rich tapestry of Success with Sweet Peas to the experimental wonder of doubled up. And her brilliant film The Beloved Ones tells about the rich lives of Ugandan women who must also live with the tragedy of HIV/AIDS. There’s no trivialisation here. Just great films.
I interviewed Sam about her short films and about her new project An Eyeful of Sound which you can follow on a special film blog.
MYLES MCLEOD: How did you get started in animation?
SAMANTHA MOORE: I studied English literature and Fine Art at Exeter University. That course seemed to embody everything that I was interested in – drawing pictures and telling stories. One of my tutors suggested that I put my paintings under the camera, and then I saw Caroline Leaf’s The Street, which was a style of animation and telling stories that I’d never seen before. I went to Central Saint Martins School of Art to do my post-grad where I made oil on glass animation.
Caroline Leaf’s The Street
MYLES: You’ve carved a niche in documentary style animations. Was that a conscious decision? Or something you found naturally?
SAM: The animated documentary tag was something that developed out of my work rather than making a decision about it. I made Success with Sweet Peas in 2003 which was a film I found very hard to get made because of the slightly odd subject matter (a film about competitive sweet-pea growing in Shropshire). It didn’t really fit into any of the usual boxes that animation fills. As my work developed I began to see it as documentary as well as animation, and it tickled me that this was such a bizarre hybrid.
MYLES: What is your process for creating an animated short?
SAM: I usually have lots of partial ideas sloshing around my brain (and a whole folder of dormant ideas in my filing cabinet). My ideas are usually linked to production/funding/distribution schemes, so I see what idea is suitable for which scheme. Schemes are good, not just for the funding but also getting them out into a specific arena, like telly or festivals. Sketch books play a large part in my ideas process, lots of drawing, painting and thinking. And tea. Lots and lots of tea.
MYLES: Do you enjoy the physical process of animating? And what would you say was your favourite part of the whole creative filmmaking process? The idea? The making? When you’ve finished? The first screening?
SAM: Oh god not the first screening. I dread those! Seeing my own work is always a torture because I always notice the mistakes. I love the ideas generation, I love the sketch book process. I also love compositing and editing. I use Final Cut Pro and Motion and the choosing process is great. The animation itself is a bit like physical exercise: nice when it’s done.
MYLES: You recently wrote on your blog about the shortcomings of software compared to old school animation. What do you think are the pros and cons of digital animation?
SAM: I like the democratisation of digital; I can dispense with cameras and have pro apps on my computer at home to produce work. Digital puts power back with anyone who wants to have a go, which is great. I like the way you can do a bit and then save it for later, heaven if you work at other jobs (for me, teaching) and have kids – I never have to worry that the paint will dry when I’m away! And I love control+Z! What I don’t like is the way that digital can be too much about the bells and whistles and not enough about the content – the more you learn a package that’s widely used the more you recognise it being over-used.
MYLES: Your film doubled up was about your experience of having twins. I wonder what your boys make of the film?
SAM: They used to love it, but now that they’re 8 and very grown-up they are starting to get REALLY embarrassed by it. The last time they watched it through parted fingers over their eyes…
doubled up
MYLES: doubled up has a great soundtrack. How do you decide what music to use in your films? Is it something you set in place before you start the film, or once the animation is complete?
I have worked both ways and now infinitely prefer getting the sound done first. As a non-musical person this allows me to be unreasonably fussy and specific about what I want from the sound track, blithely ignoring issues of practicality or time. Once the sound is done I can then meander on with the image, using the sound to structure and fitting a rough storyboard to it before animating. I work regularly with Adam Goddard, an award-winning Canadian composer, who is very talented and therefore makes me look good.
MYLES: Your last film The Beloved Ones was about children affected with HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Tell us how that project came about.
SAM: My friend Joshka Wessels is an anthropological documentary maker who travels all over the world making amazing films. She told me about a project she’d made for the Healthlink charity in Africa from which she had lots of unused footage of women and children from Kenyan and Uganda talking incredibly articulately about living with HIV/AIDS. We talked about maybe re-editing some of the audio footage and animating it, to reach a different audience than the one she had with her original project. It grew from there.
The Beloved Ones
MYLES: You had to use actresses instead of the original recordings on The Beloved Ones. I remember you saying that was a difficult decision. Do you think it changes the finished film in any way?
SAM: It did change it, definitely. I felt gutted at having to make that decision, which came very late in the process, but it became clear that the low-quality sound recording of the original footage (although fine in a live action context) meant that the audience was missing much of the meaning of the dialogue. Luckily we got two amazing actresses, Josette Simon and Lenora Crichlow to re-do the voice over and it worked well.
MYLES: Your latest film is about synaesthesia. Can you tell us what that is and how the film is working out?
SAM: An Eyeful of Sound is a 10 minute animated documentary due for completion in the autumn. It is produced by Joshka Wessels again, at Sapiens Productions in the Netherlands, and funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Awards. The scientific advisor is Dr Jamie Ward, a neuro-psychologist who specialises in research into synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is a brain condition where, when one sense is stimulated, two are triggered. For example, one of the most common forms of synaesthesia is when people have ‘coloured’ days of the week. 
Our interviewees have audio-visual synaesthesia, they can not only hear but also see music and sound.
“I saw this most beautiful sound, it was just gorgeous … beautiful reds, yellows and purples… My mum said it was the cock crowing … my first real memory of the wonderful visual sounds that I experience.” [This is from] Julie (one of the interviewees in the film), describing her earliest synaesthetic memory.
The sound is complete and the first section of the film is at the rough edit stage. I am currently animating like a maniac, but today it’s all going wrong. However, it’s Friday, and I have faith that buy the time Monday rolls around all the problems of this afternoon will have miraculously fixed themselves…
Some synthaesthia animation previously created by Samantha Moore
MYLES: And after An Eyeful of Sound… what’s next?
SAM: I’ve already started story boarding and roughly animating a new project which I’m hoping to pitch in the autumn. It is going back to the oil on glass effect that I first began animating with – I’m really excited about it!
