Having seen Purves only a couple of days previously, it was inevitable that there were some overlaps in the topics discussed in Leeds and in this, his opening night gala appearance at London Animation Festival. However, Purves is a truly engaging man, with some fascinating opinions and insights into the world of animation, many of which touch directly on the core of what my essay is about: the similarities between theatrical and stop motion puppetry. This event was essentially a retrospective, looking back at a variety of Purves' work, from across his career, from TV adverts, to his work in children's television, and his own short films. This was also an opportunity to re watch Plume. One audience member had travelled all the way from New York just for the pleasure of watching this beautiful short.
It was a great privilege for Barry Purves, a highly respected and experienced animator who has worked in the industry for 37 years, to visit college and discuss his approach to storytelling in stop motion animation. The insights he provided were invaluable, particularly as he made explicit reference to the relationship between theatre and stop motion animation. Purves started his career in theatre, with a desire to be an actor, hampered only by his stage fright and flat voice. He loved the theatricality and the storytelling. Animation proved to be the answer, enabling him to indulge his love of theatre. He also loves the detail and nuance inherent in the medium.
Next is an excellent example of the enduring influence of theatre on Purves' oeuvre.
Like Screenplay, which follows the conventions of Kabuki theatre, down to the use of poetic on set effects (silk ribbons of blood), Next takes place withing the confines of a theatre stage, rarely relying on cinematic conventions but framing the animation as though viewed by the audience, from a distance and with an emphasis on body language over facial animation.
Purves addresses the reasons why we tell stories. He defines it as a great need to mark our existence, to prove our worth. Our existence must be noticed. Storytelling has nothing to do with reality, we arrange the good bits together...it is complete artifice. Film making and animation embrace the artifice one step further, allowing the artist to make use of colour, editing, texture, lighting, everything and everything to tell their story.
To be comfortable talking about ourselves, we need a safety net, a mask to hide behind when talking about ourselves. Purves makes reference to Oscar Wilde, who asserted that man is least himself when he talks in his true voice, but behind a mask he will tell the truth. It is for this reason that people have a tendency to talk to pets and teddy bears, it is easier than talking directly to another person. Mary Poppins has her umbrella, and a parrot which gives voice to her emotions. Shakespeare was fond of gender swaps as a way of changing perspective and allowing characters to learn and be liberated. Animation can also act as this mask, this device. Ironically, the mask is liberating rather than concealing. Behind a mask, societal rules don't apply. You can get away with anything, be who you want to be. Enjoy the artifice! However it is necessary that an audience believes whatever it is you tell them, whether that be the time of day, or that a cane puppet is a living animal.
How can a puppet deal with war, death and loss. Because the language is established immediately. That is the beauty of animation, it does not need to be highly realistic, it can rely on metaphor and symbolism to communicate its message. When citing a definitive moment of animation, Purves chooses a moment from Warhorse, when the dying Topthorn is killed and put out of his misery. At this point the puppeteers lay down the puppet and their controls, stepping away and bowing to the inanimate object, the horse, before slowly backing away. Because the audience is a part of the production, having accepted and created the horse in their minds, the moment is all the more poignant and affecting. Te complicity in the illusion heightens the spectator's investment rather creating emotional distance (Brehtian Theory).
Plume
Plume is a very theatrical piece of animation. Stop motion is well suited to theatrical staging (an empty black background (a velvet set), no words (dialogue requires close ups, which would lose ody movement), just the puppet and the light). Both mediums embrace their artifice and require audience complicity if they are to be successful. Plume is theatrical in structure two, having a perfect three act structure. It concerns trauma, and how one might survive it an move forward. The film was inspired by the death of Purves' mother and the disappointment of his work on Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! falling through, and the necessity of adapting to change.
Purves is a director who considers the significance of everything everything, from composition down to the smallest gesture. And there are a lot of details in Plume. First and foremost is the character's (he has no specific identity, in spite of his resemblance to Icarus. He is a universal metaphor) wings. These are real duck wings, fitted with a four jointed armature to enable their beautiful animation. Wings are a recurring theme in Purves' work; they are his mask, his liberating device. The wings are the source of light in the film, they seem to glow, and it is only when they land on the floor that we are able to make sense of the geography of the set. The only other indicator of space is that the character always travels from right to left (it should be way round, as for some reason the eye interprets movement from left to right a 'good'. It is traditionally the direction of the hero). The character's position is the frame is also constant. Bad editing is confusing at the best of time but with no visual clues it is even more vital.
In spite of having a beautiful (and expensive. The puppet cost approximately £12,000) puppet, made by Mackinnon & Saunders, there is very little facial animation, as it is simply unnecessary, here and in many of Purves' other films. Well placed blinks communicate enough, in combination with powerful body language. Animation should be injected with energy and dynamism, the motion should not be approached mathematically. Play with changing pace, an adding visual flourishes. The real conceit in animation is to make the puppet breathe, which really brings them to life.
But the most important thing to a puppet is the eyes. A puppet must have strong eyes as they are the windows to the soul. Take them away and you take away their life and expression. However, eyes can also be negative. As the counterpoint to the winged character, Plume has three blind decaying demons, the embodiment of misery and trauma. Their eyes are empty black orbs, too wet and shiny (Vaseline, which is also good for creating dripping water), with no pupils and a lack of crucial focus. These shadow monsters instead rely on their other senses, so although human like in form, they appear animalistic, unnerving and unpleasant. The eyes also blink ever so slightly out of sequence, as though something deep inside them is broken. The effect is uncanny. The violence displayed by these creatures is quite distressing, as they pluck and tear at the wings, destroying beauty, and the thing they most wanted. Rather than destroy the duck wings, Purves employed trickery: white thread to tie together feathers to make them appear tatty, fake wings for when they are completely destroyed, and CGI feathers floating in the air.
In spite of his aversion to CGI ('If I can't touch it, I'm not interested'), it is also employed in this film for the last scene, when the character embraces his life without wings and instead takes to water. Flight and swimming are the hardest things to achieve in stop motion (swimming is essentially underwater flying).
Other points which Purves raised in relation to this film are as follows:
The puppet is silicone. Silicone is heavy, cold, and has no stretch. Latex would have bee preferable for its balletic movement, but due to the budget it was only possible to have 1 skin, and silicone lasts and can be cleaned.
Working with the score is a good trick as it helps prevent the temptation to overrun the shot frames and go off on a tangent.
Purves always works on single shots, at 25fps. He would love 40fps, to rally exploit the detail of the medium, and get even smoother animation.
He encourages animators to use their instinct, rather than slavishly check video playback while animating.
The shadows were made of latex, scorched with a blowtorch to give them a nasty, rough, decayed look. If you look closely, they have the stumps of wings. If the winged character doesn't fight and adapt, he will become like them,
Just as the winged character stays to the right of the frame, the shadows stay on the left. This helps with establishing the geography of the set.Try and have a front to a set, jjust as a theatre has a front of the stage. Try and view the set from a constant angle.
Composition and movement can tell the story.
Cut the number of characters to the essentials.
Tchaikovsky
The other film which Purves discussed was Tchaikovsky, which also demonstrates the influence of theatre. Set within a gilded frame, the set strongly resembles a stage, which is fitting, as the composer is on display, being put up for judgement. The artifice is immediately established, as is the use of photographic projection. The latter was a result of budget restrictions (this was the tightest budget Purves had ever worked with), as it would have been too expensive to have a puppet of every important person in his life. But is effective in echoing the sense of melancholy in the narration, which is compromised of excerpts from Tchaikovsky's own letter and diaries. He is alone on stage, separated from his loved ones, with only memories for company.
Again there is very little facial animation, indeed the character doesn't even have a mouth. Instead, his hands do a great deal of communicating, required as they are to mime playing the piano (each note is accurately animated) and conduct an orchestra. Such is Purves' commitment that he even researched how Tchaikovsky held his conductor's baton, so that his puppet might do likewise. With all this strain, one might reasonably expect replacement hands were called for on a regular basis, yet only one pair of wire hands was used.
Symbolism: the swan represents trauma (a popular theme).
Tchaikovsky gives a red flower to everyone that he loves.
Placing foil in the jacket enables it to be animated.
Make sure, when working with prop makers, that the puppet can lift the prop!
Part of the appeal of stop motion is that people know it exists, they know it isn't real, yet they choose to believe in it anyway. There is a link to the familiar, to teddies and action figures, objects we wished to life as children. Like a ballerina, you are aware of her anatomy and gravity, yet she performs tricks and great feats. You are aware that you are watching a puppet, aware of the technique, and the trick, but it is still magical. There is something special in the physical presence of the puppet too...you can hold it in your hand and it has a soul of sorts. It is difficult for CGI to provde the same experience.
There is a dialogue between theatre and stop motion, they share the artifice. Puppets don't behave literally, they behave within the parameters of the set/stage. Character animation is influenced by stage acting, mime and dance. 'It takes as much effort to keep a puppet still as it does to move him.'
