Figure 1. The Animated Tea-towel by St Paul’s Animation Club (2024)
I once had a rather memorable conversation with a colleague at a wrap party for a production I had worked on. This took place some years ago now, though my position on what was said continues to shift as I’ve had time to reflect. The conversation was with the series director, who disclosed their reason for why I had been given the job as an animator: ‘it’s because you can’t animate’. Despite its brutal honesty (and with the benefit of hindsight – I’m fine, seriously) the comment was well-meaning: there was a compliment in there somewhere. At the time, the director tried to elaborate, but I just came away hearing the negative. I wasn’t a confident animator, so I took the feedback a little delicately. Unlike others on the production, my way into the craft took a somewhat autodidactic route. I hadn’t pursued a conventional animation degree or training as others had. Although my own university course offered an animated specialism, this was mostly a self-taught path for those that pursued it.
As a student, I discovered Terry Gilliam’s Animations of Mortality (1978), a book which is a refreshing antidote to the perceived canon of Richard Williams’ The Animator’s Survival Kit (2001) or Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston’s The Illusion of Life (1981). Gilliam is an advocate of corner-cutting, often recommending scenic or narrative excuses – such as long grass, darkness or roller skates – in place of undertaking laborious animation (‘…if it looks like a lot of work – avoid it’). Despite resembling a mantra for laziness, such an approach can actually be beneficial to narrative clarity. He writes: “Admittedly, the movements are elaborate and graceful – but who needs it? If that’s what the public wants, they can go to the ballet.” (Gilliam, 1978)
Animations of Mortality advises would-be-animators to pursue cut-out animation instead, which I myself did in digital form using 2D animation software. Conventional guidance such as the Twelve Principles didn’t apply easily here – there were different rules. Instead, one was encouraged to approach the animation craft as bricolage, working with what you’ve got – which was not usually a lot. For the self-taught practitioner this advice was validating, emphasizing that the energy of animation could lie elsewhere – in the unusual, or the humorous. Gilliam would often refer to himself as an outsider, adopting this position as a member of Monty Python, but also as an attitude that came through in his work. In the same way, my animation was awkward and clumsy. Walk cycles resembled clunky, mechanical toys and I recall lip-synching a five-minute cartoon before recording the voice track, all of which produced, as you might imagine, idiosyncratic results.
Whilst I was at university, I can recall a lecture given by Barry Purves who discussed his animation practice. As he stood, passionately recounting stories from his personal and studio work, I had an uncanny feeling that I had seen Purves somewhere before. The next slide confirmed my assumption: a picture of Toad from Cosgrove Hall’s production of Wind in the Willows. I had indeed seen Purves before, though that time it was his gestures, mannerisms and body language conveyed through his puppet performance.
There are a number of commentators that refer to animation as a language; a means of embodied communication through motion (Nguyen, 2016). To master this discipline, we learn the ‘phrases’ of others – walks, runs, jumps – though we may not notice the subtlety of our own unintended articulation that is conveyed whether we intend it or not. Purves refers to animation as ‘a device to tell the truth’ (Purves in Materia Films, 2018) – a vehicle for language, a voice. As a student and an emerging animator, I failed to recognise that despite the awkwardness or clumsiness, all animation has a unique voice, and a value.
I often come back to that candid conversation from the wrap party and the accompanying explanation that animation is an expressive tool that gives us an authentic means of articulation. Much like a spoken language, we might speak clearly or struggle for the right words, but irrespective of its ‘success’ there is integrity. It is this embodied performance that carries meaning beyond intention – and this is its value. My own animation practice now sits within an educational context, supporting school and university students with creative disciplines, including animation. In my teaching, I’m keen to encourage each student’s authentic and individual voice, whether this is accomplished and graceful, or awkward and clumsy, as it is precisely in these moments – intended or not – that honesty, and value emerge.
References
Gilliam, T. (1978) Animations of Mortality. London: Eyre Methuen.
Gilliam, T. (2015) How I Became An Unlikely Member Of Monty Python [ONLINE] Available from: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/features/terry-gilliam-how-i-became-an-unlikely-member-of-monty-python-a6677536.html
Materia Films (2018) What Is A Puppet? Barry Purves Between Animation And Theatre [ONLINE] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LTyUd6DQbE
Nguyen, M. (2016) Establishing A Feel To The Flow Of Movement [ONLINE] Available from: https://rainplace.net/post/141942937354/establishing-a-feel-to-the-flow-of-movement
Benjamin Hall has a background in animation for broadcast, and currently supports creative disciplines at Leeds Beckett University and The Open College of the Arts. Ben has completed a practice-based PhD, and is currently exploring alternative pedagogies that employ participatory arts practice in order to foster sociocratic learning communities.