Stop motion has a peculiar power. Although it’s not the smoothest or most realistic form of animating, I feel like its tactility offers an immediate anchor to the audience. We implicitly understand the personality, care and craft that’s gone into the work, and it connects us to the characters. In short films like Spatula Head or Type, director and animator Lesley-anne Rose uses this power to connect us to people who have drifted just slightly away from society, like a boy with a ‘spatula head’ or a girl who’s allergic to almost anything. Rose finds the humor in these tragic stories, but clearly approaches the characters with genuine curiosity and kindness. She grounds their absurdity and turns them, as beautifully designed puppets, into hyperreal versions of the solitary people we see in our day-to-day lives.
Her work also includes wonderful music videos for Kathryn Williams, Richard Dawson and Black Country, New Road. I particularly love how she turns ‘Two Halves’, Richard Dawson’s very British and unromantic story of a boys’ football match, into a supernatural folk horror scene without losing the song’s innocence or tenderness.
From the 17th to the 21st of November, Lesley-anne Rose’s work will be exhibited at Teesside University’s Constantine Gallery as part of this year’s Animex Festival Exhibition.
Thank you for speaking with me! Your work will be exhibited as part of the Animex Festival. How has it been to revisit your work for this exhibition? Has it led to any new insights about yourself?
I have struggled to take my creativity seriously. Looking back over the work, the puppets in particular, there is a craggy beauty in the unkempt forms and material experimentation on show in the exhibition that you don’t see as much in the animated work, because it is cleaned up a bit. Not too much though, I like it to look like what it is: metal, foam, wood and fabric. Wrangling those materials together to make something cohesive, I am proud of that.
The characters in your short films are often people who are ostracized or become estranged from society. What draws you to such characters and such stories?
My own life experience was outside the bell curve of normality. My parents had me at 16, we were all three of us children trying to fit in a box the color and shape of which suited no one. My home environment was chaotic and unsafe, I never saw anyone living or being like me in stories, I felt very outside of the world. I have one beautiful daughter, she helped me accept myself and stay authentic to my voice, my experience. I hope that some people watching my work can recognize their uniqueness and know they are not alone.
Although your short films are all comedies, you can really tell that there’s so much compassion and empathy for the main characters. Is it ever hard to find that balance?
They are not all comedies. Mirrors, the music video for Kathryn Williams, is about depression and sadness as a creative tool, and I didn’t intend Oscines, the music video for Black Country, New Road, to be comedic, but it does have comedic moments. I approach life with less seriousness than I probably should and maybe that makes it into the work?
You give animation workshops and teach stop motion animation at Teesside University. Have you noticed any change in how people approach stop motion – and animation in general – with the increasing accessibility of digital animation technologies and the recent rise of AI?
Not so much in stop motion. Student essay writing has probably got slicker and why not use those tools if you struggle with academic writing? I am intrigued to see what AI has to offer stop motion, I don’t use it much, it’s boring to me, creatively speaking.
In a 2021 talk, you mentioned your beautiful music video for ‘Two Halves’ by Richard Dawson as a project that you’re particularly proud of. Could you tell me more about the process of making that video and why you’re so proud of it?
Music videos have a tight turn around, it’s like binge working – six months of work crammed into six weeks. I have to want to work with the musician to put myself through that process, it is tough. I had been working on some figures from folk culture based on emojis, a wandering band of musicians in a post-apocalyptic landscape. I always have my own story to tell, I don’t want to just be illustrating the song lyrics, I have no interest in doing that. I thought the two stories came together beautifully to form something new. Thank you for complimenting the work!
This year, you directed the previously mentioned music video for Black Country, New Road’s single ‘Happy Birthday’. How did this collaboration come about, and what was your inspiration for the bird-like figures?
Tyler, who wrote the song, wanted to work with me. The band liked my folk style figures and storytelling. I pitched an initial idea and they weren’t really into it, so I got a pitch deck of three ideas together, all very different in style and tone. The bird-headed characters – I had worked on designs from the previous year, but wasn’t happy with the story I had for them, so I wrote a new storyline as one of the pitches. The band chose to go with that idea and it worked so well with the song. I carefully plotted the characters’ story arcs to the lyrics and song beats. I also work with a fantastic animator called Sharan who brings everything to life so well.
Do you always design your puppets for a particular project or with a specific story in mind? Or do some of them come about from a looser process of experimentation?
A mix of both. I am very influenced by people from real life. There was this amazing couple who I used to see getting buses everywhere with four shopping trolleys, they wore lots of layers of mismatched clothes and they were both really tiny. They had a little sign on one of their trolleys saying ‘leave us alone we do not want you to help us we do not want to talk to you.’ I used all my self-control to not follow them around and befriend them. The sign just made me more interested: what is their story? They have ended up in character designs over the years.
You mention working with an animator, Sharan. I often still imagine stop motion filmmaking as a single person designing everything and then painstakingly animating everything by themselves as well. What does the team involved in your projects actually look like? And how important is collaboration in your work?
I have always worked with people, everyone I know is usually dragged in to do something once a project starts. I need time to get the studio set up, sort the camera rigs and lighting kits and fabricate the puppets and get the storyboards ready, so there are always bits people can help with. For the last few projects a couple of brilliant artists made the sets, they are fast and precise and the work always looks great. One of my housemates came in and did the production stills on Oscines, a couple of friends made tiny clothes, axes and scissors. We have a great wrap party to thank everyone who has come in and lent a hand.
Sharan was one of my students and has worked with me since ‘Two Halves’, where he started off helping out and I was so impressed with his work he’s been on every project since then.
You’ve also worked as a producer on a number of animated shorts. What does the role of producer entail on such projects?
Applying for funding and then making sure everyone has what they need during the shoot. Keeping everyone on time so we can meet deadlines. Developing a knack of being super nice and attentive to anyone working on a project because it’s such hard work. Often for indie productions a costume maker for example might have a full time job and be making all the puppet costumes at night whilst also having a family to look after. A lot of women working on indie productions are juggling a lot to be part of a project, my job is to make them feel valued because they really are.
In 2018, you told The Skinny that “the world needs more lo-fi handmade bizarreness stabbing its eyeballs.” I fully agree, but I am curious why you believe that ‘lo-fi handmade bizarreness’ is so important. Why do we need it?
Authenticity. With money comes pressure to have numbers, make audiences bigger, get more eyes on a project. Lots of people make decisions who are not creative. When you have no budget or low budget you can keep control and make what you want to make. Tell uncomfortable truths about the world. There is a feral energy in work made not for money and beauty in imperfection. Some things can not be tamed.
Would you ever want to make a big budget movie? Is that still, or has it ever been, an ambition of yours?
Unsure. I would definitely like to make a longer film and have a feature script in progress but I have doubts, bigger budgets bring in more unsolicited meddling. So far that hasn’t been a worry because getting a project funded is not easy and I am a realist. But who knows?
Which animators or animation projects have been inspiring you recently? Anyone you’d like to give a shout-out?
Robert Morgan’s The Cat With Hands, any films by Sofia Carrillo (her work is stunning), Anu Laura Tuttelburg’s Winter in the Rainforest (animating porcelain is a work of sheer magnificence) and Allison Schulnick’s Mound for aesthetic brilliance and strange rhythmic movement.
I curate the stop motion night for Newcastle Puppetry Festival and I get a chance to show these types of gorgeous works to a big audience once a year. I feel very privileged to be in a position where that is part of my life, alongside directing and producing for animation.
More Lesley-anne Rose:
Travellers’ Tales
Animation Machines with Lesley-anne Rose
Discussing the making of Type
Behind-the-scenes of ‘Happy Birthday’
Interview: Digital Makings Artist of the Month
Bothy Project Residency
Website