The Press Box - Why Stop-Motion Animation Takes Forever to Make, With Nick Park | The Big Picture (Ep. 428)

Episode Date: February 16, 2018

Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey sits down with ‘Wallace and Gromit’ creator and Academy Award–winning animation director Nick Park to discuss the time-consuming process of making stop-motion animation, his commitment to the form, and his new underdog cavemen comedy, ‘Early Man.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Head to Squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code Big Picture to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. It was a cottage industry once, but we've sort of expanded it, and many people who think it's a couple of guys in his shed. That's been the journey for us, really, in the last few years, with making feature films, is how to industrialize the process the way Disney films are made.

I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with some of the most exciting filmmakers in the world. This podcast is a safe space for animation. Unlike some of my colleagues here at The Ringer, I adore animated movies, especially those made by today's guest, the great British writer director, Nick Park.

Park, who is the creator of the beloved Wallace and Gromit, is a master of the stop-motion animation format, which requires meticulous work with clay, patience, and a whole lot of creativity. For his trouble, he's got four Academy Awards. Park has a new movie, an underdog sports comedy about cavemen called Early Man, and he still has a gift for combining the sweet with the absurd.

Nick and I talked about the extraordinary time it takes to make one of these movies, why he won't give up stop motion, and the animation studios that intimidate him. Here's Nick Park. Nick, thanks for joining me today. Oh, thank you. My pleasure. Nick, it's been 10 years, more than 10 years,

since you had a film that you directed out into the world, right? I guess it is. How does it feel? Fantastic, yeah. What took so long? It's always great. It's great to just have ideas and then see them become reality and out there. Yeah.

What took so long? I wasn't really aware of time passing, to be honest. I'm an animator. That's something we hear about the style, obviously, of the things that you make, too, the stop motion. It does this great period of time. But what were you doing in that time? Did it take a long period of time to conceive the film?

It did. I mean, these films, they're years in development. And, you know, I spent a couple of years just in a room with a writer just looking at cards, you know, postcards on a wall of, you know, looking at the story and the structure and the character arcs. the story arcs and everything. Do you have sketches of those characters at that time too? Yeah, I recently discovered an early sketch of a caveman from 2010,

so that's how long I've been doing it. Wow. I mean, I've been involved in helping develop other projects and stuff since then. That's what's taking the time. But, yeah, I mean, this one's, well, I guess it wasn't on it full time to start with, and it slowly became a reality as we got the funding. the backing for it, and it was, you know, green lit. And then it, from then on, it, it was, it's taken about four or five years to actually. Why this story? Why did you decide to do a

caveman story? Well, I guess, I've, I've had cavemen kind of in my blood for, since I was about 11. I was, I was, and it, for me, it seems to lend itself to stop frame animation, you know, the kind of the rough, the hairy earthiness of it all and almost the night. Eve. A lot of comedy for me comes from the stop frame, and especially cavemen and women. And I was a big fan of Ray Harry House and films, and I absolutely loved one million years BC. I couldn't believe it. Seeing that a film when I was 11 of dinosaurs moving around with people, and I guess it's always been there. And actually, that film is the one that made me pick up a home movie camera and start making my own movies. I discovered that my mother's home movie camera had a stop frame button on it,

like one frame at a time. And so I was a big dinosaur fan and started making my own dinosaurs out of clay and moving them around. I also had a love for cartoons. So it became, you know, so I started doing funny stuff as well. So dinosaur movies were sort of your first films that you were making. Yeah, yeah. This is a bit of a full circle moment. It is.

And I actually discovered, I think it's an understanding. under my bed somewhere. I made a Super 8 film of a caveman and his pet dinosaur, Brontosaurus, called Bongo. Murphy and Bongo, it was called, my first ever duo. Wow, so this has literally been living inside you for decades. Yeah, yeah, so I've kind of remade that base. That's incredible. And I feel like the first shot of the movie is like direct Ray Harryhausen tribute, right? The two dinosaurs kind of going at it. It feels like it's at one of his films. Yeah, and we actually, as a tribute to Ray, We named one of the dinosaurs Ray and the other one Harry. But yeah, that opening sequence is very much a tribute,

very much a nod to Ray, Harry Houssen, the great man. And we even put a bit of, it's really strange to be shooting on digital cameras, which is immaculate. And then you have to degrade the film and give it a bit of sparkle and a bit of grain to make it look like it was shot in 1968 or 1969. Yeah, that's fascinating. Because obviously in your early films are all shot on film, and they do have that with that natural grain, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, anything shot.

I mean, we've been shooting on digital cameras since Cursive the Weir Abbey, it was shot on film. And then we, Matter of Loaf and Death, and the Wallace and Gromit shorts, we shot that on digital cameras. Do you have a preference? Well, we approached it with a little bit of caution because we kind of waited until the technology was right. But even jumping across was you have to make lots of adjustments and the other DP. You know, he had to change. We had to, even in the art direction, we had to change the color of the wallpaper slightly in Wallace and Gromwich. So it didn't kind of sing out too vividly and that kind of thing.

But now the technology is more, I think it's more and more adjusted. Is there anything that you miss about some of the more, pardon the pun, like primitive techniques that you had earlier in your career? Well, I mean, in a way we're still doing it in a way in the primitive. You know, early man is very much the old stop frame technique. And most of the principal animation is actually using stop frame and clay wherever we can. But you do have the use of some digital. That's right.

All the way through, we've adapted or adopted digital technology where it helps us, where it makes the animation a bit quicker. For example, there's a lot of running around in the movie and people jumping through the air, for example, in a football game. So in the olden days, we used to use wires, thin wires or fishing line, but then you'd have to position it. It took the animator a while to position it so it didn't reflect the light. Nowadays, we don't think about that.

We have a big, bendy rig behind the character. that lifts the character off the ground, frame by frame. And then we just paint that out afterwards. Oh, incredible. So, yeah, so you don't have to worry about it. So it makes the animation quicker, but it's the same technique. What about writing the stories? Is it easier for you to write now because you feel like nothing is in your way?

There's a lot more you can achieve? No, it's not easier in anything. The writing remains the hardest thing because it's, especially in a feature for it. because it's telling a story that has to have all the right points, you know, all the right structure and junctures, you know, so that it remains compelling and entertaining throughout the whole 18, 90 minutes.

And that's a massive challenge. Was it difficult for you to have a story that is not sort of part of this native environment that you've been working in with Walls and Gromit and the way that that expanded over the years too? Yeah, that was a very big challenge to be creating, entirely new world, but at the same time that's what's it. That's what's interesting and exciting and inviting

about it as well. It would have been easier in some ways if I'd have made another Wallace and Gromit movie. Yeah. But one of the biggest challenges is establishing brand new characters and a brand new world because you have to do so much in the opening 20 minutes to kind of get people

kind of zoned in on these new characters. How much research are you doing for a story about prehistoric times? Is it important that something like this that is as lighthearted and fun be accurate. I was thinking about this because you have these two worlds colliding literally, this is sort of a stone age and a bronze age, are colliding in the story. But as I was watching, I was like, is this, is there an element of accuracy to what's happening here?

Well, I think there is truth in it, but it's not at all accurate. If that can be true. I think it's, yeah, I didn't really be, I did actually look into the, I did learn a lot about the stone age and the bronze. age. I didn't realize the bronze age lasted so long. It's a few thousand years. But once I got the basic information, a lot of the reference in the film is to other movies, not so much to accuracy and scientific accuracy or historical, for that matter. I could have set out to make just a prehistoric adventure comedy, but for me, I'm always looking for that

quirky angle, and I feel like that's been covered so well anyway in animation. So it was the football or, you know, what I think you call soccer here. We call soccer, yes, we do. I'm sorry, getting it wrong. But yeah, it's kind of about the invention of soccer and how this bunch of cavemen who overpowered by the Bronze Age can no longer fight with their old stone tools and weapons, and so they have to. The only way they can win their valley back is to play soccer.

You must be a soccer fan. I'm not a fan of soccer at all. Really? No. So how did you land on this? I didn't. Well, I didn't grow up in a soccer fan family. I always supported my home team.

I always had a bag with Preston North End on it, which is my local team. And so I was a nominal supporter. But I do actually get excited about the game. I love the World Cup and get very excited. I wish America had got through to me. I do as well. It's a painful. How dare you bring it up here?

You'll be there and we won't. It would have made my job easier as well. Yeah, no, that's true. Still, the sport has grown in profile huge here over the last 10 years. Sure, yeah, yeah. Was it hard for you then as not like a hardcore fan to make this the centerpiece of the story that you're telling? Yeah, well, I always feel I'm an outsider, so I've got an outsider's view on the game. So it's not primarily a game for soccer fans.

at all or sports fans at all. It's primarily a comedy adventure with cavemen, but soccer was just the quirky angle that I found very early on that made the whole idea different. It really works. It does have the spirit of a sports movie in a great way. Like I said earlier in the show, we know that it takes a long time to make these films. That's something that you must get asked about all the time, but how long does it take specifically to make early man from start to finish? Yeah, well, the actual filming takes about 18 months.

that's like the final part of the process. About 18 months to two years to actually do the animation. But before that, we're storyboarding and designing characters and sets and everything. And before that, we're writing and developing the story. So all in all, four or five years for the whole movie. Unbelievable. Is there ever a time where you're like, I've run out of patience and I can't do this? Do you ever...

Yeah. You get tired. Sorry, I shouldn't say that. because it's a very thrilling process as well. And I feel so privileged to be able to preside over such a, you have an idea and then bring it through to realisation on the screen. And I guess what really emotivates me is the gags and the comedy of it all. I couldn't make a serious feature film.

I think, I don't know what I'd go spare. I would really go crazy if it was serious. So it's getting the ideas, but staying with the most. over four years and then seeing them in front of an audience, that's the most satisfying bit. Hey guys, we're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor. Support for today's show comes from Squarespace. Ready to start your new business? Make it stand out with Squarespace. With beautiful templates created by world-class designers, Squarespace makes it easy to turn your idea into a new and unique website. Showcase that work, blog or publish content, even sell

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Make it with Squarespace. Head to Squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code Big Picture to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. at Squarespace.com, offer code, big picture. Now back to Nick Park. I read that you have 35 to 40 animators working across 40 sets on the film. So what exactly does a director of a stop motion animation film do?

What exactly are you doing with that many people in your stead? Yeah, you are sort of overseeing a lot of people. And I kind of, while directing it alone, you know, I have two animation directors. and people below me who then feed stuff to animators and briefed animators in more detail. And there was a whole, you know, there's 150 people or so working on it who are, as you say, like 40 animators, a whole groups of different specialists

and model making, set building, and all the usual editing and lighting and camera, crew and we're filming on 30,000. five sets at the same time at any one point. So we're filming all these different scenes at the same time. So it's a lot to look after. Do you have to approve everything? Yeah.

Yeah. There's one director friend of mine who said it's like being pecked by 100 chickens a day all day long. Because one minute I can be in some meeting about the story and how some problem with the structure and how we're going to solve this problem. And next minute, 20 minutes later, I'm in a meeting where they want to know what kind of, what color of grass it is on the football field or how long do you want the grass. Everything has been decided by somebody. Everything's been created. If something doesn't work, do you have the flexibility to change it? I feel like there must be so much work that goes into the pre-production of the story.

Absolutely. And as soon as we've got scenes that are pretty solid, we start storyboarding. and the storyboards help to inform everybody. So the storyboards are fairly detailed. And, you know, so that helps the art department to know what to build and what to plan, how much studio space we need for that set. And, you know, and how many effects do we need so that we can, all the digital people can start working.

And the storyboard acts as a kind of Bible for everybody to go by. When I think of you, and this is mostly because I'm ignorant, I think of literally you moving Wallace around and actually animating those films by yourself. Now, that's obviously not what happens anymore, but are there times still when you're doing sort of the handmade work where you're in the nitty-gritty of it? Yeah, that's right. I've met many people who think it's a couple of guys in his shed. But it's, yeah, it was a cottage industry once, but we've sort of expanded it and that's the bin there. the big, you know, sort of journey for us really in the last few years

is with making feature films is how to we industrialise the process the way, you know, Disney films are made or, you know, Pixar film. If that's not too crude a term to industrialise, because it's still, you know, these films are very personal. And our challenge is to keep it personal, to keep a voice, a single voice and a style and have everybody working in that same style. so it looks like it's been made by a couple of people in a shed.

Yeah, but it is not. That's what you're saying. But it's not. So we found lots of ways to make the technique. I mean, we did start out. I was doing either on the first film, Grand Day Out, I did do about 90% of the animation. Wrong trousers. Me and Steve Box did all the animation.

And then it grew and grew from there to seven of us to on a feature film. You know, as you say, there would be 35, 40 animators. When did you know that you wanted to quote, you industrialized the process, that you wanted to make an expansive, you know, you've worked with Peter Lord for a long time and producer. Did you guys have a plan to say we're going to make Wallace and Grom and Features? We're going to make chicken run. Did you know that it was going to keep growing in that way? No, no. It's been a constant kind of constant expanding journey, really.

We haven't, we've never really had a plan, I don't think. I think Pete Lord and Dave Sproxton, who founded the studio, they, I think it's just, we've just gone from one thing to another as our instincts, you know, have led us. And, you know, we made shorts for many years, and we were approached about doing features. I remember Disney approached us at first about doing a feature back in the early 90s.

But we always felt we were not ready, like the whole, the idea of going from half hour to a whole, whole one and a half hours was just too big. And we didn't know how we could gather the expertise to enable that to happen. And how would our stuff stand up on the big screen? We were worried about all that kind of thing. And I guess... What changed then?

Well, I guess a lot of our generation were making short films and, you know, Pixar were doing short films in their early days. And we all sort of knew each other at festivals. and then we saw Henry Selleck's film, you know, the Tim Burton Nightmaremerey for Christmas. And that was like a, wow, you can do this. And how have they done that? So that was a challenge for us.

And we had no experience at creating the stories, the kind of story it would take to have just a story that remains compelling for that long. I was wondering, what does it like to know that you probably will only be able to make maybe half as much of the films or the work as, say, an animator working in a digital format? Maybe even less than half, you know, across your career. Is there like any frustration or sadness about that? Or are you content to say, this is the style that I love and this is the work that I'll be able to make out of it? Right.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, there is, it's very daunting, you know, when you're working on a full-length. feature and you it's uh i have so many ideas i would love to be able to get them out there quicker um you kind of accept that this is the time it takes um but strangely enough though i you know talking to guys at dreamworks or pixar the the the length it takes to make a full length feature film is about the same i guess it uh there are quicker ways of doing everything but um but it's because it's not even a choice for me. I just love the clay.

I love what comes from the clay. It's like the way Gromit was created. It didn't happen on a computer screen. It was because I had the clay model. I was going to make him have a mouth, and I was going to sculpt a mouth every frame and have him speak a little like Scooby-Doo or something. And I found I could only move his brow,

and it was just through tweaking his brow, practically that his character came about and his character was born out of that sort of nuance and very small kind of observational kind of human behavior that I found I could create and he didn't need a voice anymore so and I feel like there's a humor that comes out of the clay itself and a certain charm so for me it's part and parcel of the whole thing in one On the one hand, we say it's like, it's the story that matters most. It doesn't matter what the medium is. It's as long as you have a good story and good characters.

But I think there is something that comes out of the actual medium here. Yeah, they're bound together for you. Yeah, they are. And that's why I felt cavemen really suits this medium as well, because there's something a bit naive and a bit earthy that comes out of the clay. So since it takes four, five, six years to work on films like this, How do you decide when to start the next thing? And how do you decide what that is?

Yeah, it's a good question. It is funny how when you're working on one thing, it sparks other ideas. And so it seems a continuous process. I've always had one idea while working on. It's almost like the idea you can't work on starts to get exciting because you're having to complete this idea. Right, right. Yeah, so I have ideas already for new films, and I guess I do tend to think in terms of stop frame,

because I know what looks funny in stop frame and what could be good in animated in stop frame. So I always end the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing that they've seen? What is the last great thing that you have seen? The last great thing? Oh, gosh, that's a good question. but I've just seen Coco which was pretty amazing Oh yeah

Yeah What did you like about Coco I think it was Just beautiful elegantly made I was I was learning The whole time about direction Yeah do you do you take

Like do you take lessons from other animators I do Yeah So I watch all sorts of stuff I don't just watch animation I just I watch all kinds of films And old films

and recent films. Was there anything that stuck out in Coco that you were like, oh, I hadn't thought of it this way? It's just the whole thing with Pixar, the way they choose quite adult material, you know, subject matter as well to do with memory loss

and I love the work of Pete Doctor as well. I'm going to see him at the weekend. You know, inside out, just how mature, entertaining at the same time. time is very mature. Their work is at the same time. I feel similarly about early man in all your work. So, Nick, thanks so much for coming and doing this today. Oh, it's very kind. Thank you. Thanks again for listening to today's show. On Monday I'll be back with a new episode, a conversation with Yancey Ford, whose incredible film Strong Island is nominated for Best Documentary

at the Oscars and is streaming on Netflix right now, so check that out. And I want to give a special shout out to our Black Panther coverage on the ringer.com this week. I wrote about the film for the site, as did Micah Peters, K. Austin Collins, Rob Harvilla, Andrew Godadadarro. many more. And my pals at Binge Mode took a deep dive into the Marvel Cinematic Universe this week, so please check that out and check back here on Monday for a new episode of The Big Picture.