What’s Up got the opportunity and chance to sit and talk with two landmarks in the movie and animation industry, Dr. Janeann Dill, Ph.D, and Mr. Philippe Jalladeau, both masters of their trade to talk about the art of animation, film making, and communicating the artist’s thoughts.
WU: To set the stage, Dr. Dill would you give us a little background on what you do?
JD: I care about the visual arts in a very broad sense . Let me tell you a story. I became an experimental animator from having been a painter and fine artist for fifteen years prior to moving into film making. When I was an Artist In Residence at the American Center in Paris, I had an idea that I wanted my paintings to move in time. That desire drove me to find a way to make this happen. I needed to go somewhere to learn the process that I thought was called animation. While still in Paris, I asked many people about where to go to learn the art of animation and everyone I respected pointed me to an art institute in California (Cal Arts) and that I should study with a man named Jules Engel.
WU: When you say animation, is it as simple as holding a tablet or a computer and drawing images that move, or is it deeper than that?
JD: Single frames that are projected in a sequence is “animated film,” so whether you’re drawing still images or photographing still images, they will create an illusion of movement when they are projected onto a screen. That said, what is a more important consideration than the media that is used, is the “idea” that drives this sequence of images. As well, there is a difference between something that is animated and something that simply moves. Animation is described when an object moves in a rhythmic process, … where there is timing, pacing, and rhythm … Which means there is an intentional art form being communicated.
WU: So guess this brings us to filmmaking, Mr. Philippe, in your case what does it take to communicate your ideas through film?
PJ: Well, I don’t want to disappoint you. When I make a film I would like to see people appreciating it as a form of art, but when it comes to mass communication systems, you try to make the film for a broader audience, since no producer would sponsor a film unless they can see the potential profits of it. And when you target mass communication you shouldn’t expect much art in the film.
Take the example of Charlie Chaplin, in this case we can see the merge between mass communication and art, but these days you can’t find except a little of the experimental movies that really captures and conveys an art form, and in those movies not many people can appreciate it and enjoy it.
JD: The animation that I care deeply about in my personal work is, in fact, hand drawn. I have been showing students here in Dar Al-Hekma the history of experimental animation movies that were created in 1921. In 1926 a woman artist in Germany, Lotte Reiniger, created one of the first and only surviving feature-length animated films. Reiniger made her feature animation using 2D cut-out silhouettes that were animated in stop-motion on glass that was lighted from below to create black shadow figures. Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Ahmed is an animated adaptation of 1001 Arabian Nights. The feature animation is 67 minutes long. In 1926 that was an enormous task for an independent animator whose dedication to her art produced a fine legacy. That feature animation is, today, considered experimental animation because it was historically a new form of art in 1920’s European cinema.
WU: When you read a novel, a writer gets a unique opportunity to lay down the whole scene, with all the details he wants to direct his readers to, in the case of a film maker or an animator, frames tend to move fast, that the viewer might not catch; let’s say an umbrella that was situated at the background of the scene. How hard is it to bring something that was on paper to real life?
PJ: You see art can not be taught, you can learn communication but you are born with art, of course you can develop it and hone it as well. So some people can make good films and communicate their ideas, but you won’t spot any touch of art in it.
Now focusing on the artist, the first thing he or she should do is avoid cliché, thanks to TV programs our taste for fine art has been spoiled and blurred.
JD: I agree with Philippe that cliché is the negative side of mass communication. For example, if you look at what the public believes is “Reality TV,” viewers don’t realize it is all scripted by writers to present their cast of people (not actors) who are usually not talented nor trained in art of acting to begin with. That absence is the lowest common denominator within the art form.
PJ: Let’s go back to art, art is disturbing, and no one wants to pay to be disturbed, that’s why producers usually won’t finance such projects. When Picasso started, people said that this wasn’t art, it is rubbish, and now he is known as one of the world’s greatest painters.
WU: What about the quality of the medium you deliver your message through does it make any difference?
JD: Watching a movie or an animation that is shot in high definition on television or on a computer screen is a much different experience than watching, let’s say, a film in a theater. These are two very different aesthetic experiences. Today’s generation of design and animation students are emerging within a type of media that sets up the digital aesthetic as a template for aesthetic “taste,” so if a filmmaker wants to reach this generation, there is a need to find the best media to communicate your ideas. Again, I agree, if someone has grown up surrounded only by mediocrity, but thinks it is “greatness” then the difference between mediocrity and greatness is never learned. Education needs to be a vast endeavor for students to expose them to those differences.
PJ: Personally I have nothing against the new developments, since cinema has always been in touch with these new developments, you can find art in different forms. I have noticed some students today here in this college, who used Frank Sinatra as the score for their movie, it would be hard to see that in France, or even the US for that matter, you will find a very small number of young students who are interested, but here in Saudi Arabia I saw that, and I think this is a good indicator to high quality artistic taste.
WU: So have the two of you ever met before or worked together on any projects in the past?
JD: (Laughs) I just met Phillipe! I can see, however, that we are cut from the same fabric. We are both experimental in our thinking about art, and we even approached our students in similar ways since we’ve been teaching at Dar Al Hekma.
PJ: You see over here it is hard to get exposed to film, yet students have a very strong desire, which makes them try to know and learn more about cinema and film making.
On the other hand in France, you can see any film you want at any time, yet people are loosing the desire to learn about the art of film making.
WU: I have interviewed many different types of artists, yet I never met an animator or a film maker, so both of you are my first. How do you go about your workflow?
PJ: It all starts with an image or an idea, so let’s say I see something, it is stored in my memory as an image, I use that as a starting point, we call it a stimulus, now it can be either an artistic stimulus or an intellectual stimulus. So in my case I came to this country my brain is receiving many stimulus as I observe your culture, I would get a starting point, after that I would add points of view, a western point of view and a local vision of the westerner’s point. Now I do have the idea for such a film, in film making this approach is called realism, which shouldn’t be confused with naturalism.
Realism means that a situation could happen like that, yet it doesn’t, or you can describe it as being bigger than life. On the other hand naturalism means that things happen they way they do in real life. So I tend to focus on realism types of film. But what is really important is to focus all your efforts in one film and one film only to get tangible results.
JD: Although I am teaching exclusively in animation while here, Phillipe and I tend to have a similar philosophy in developing concepts for films. At the Tawasol event I am showing a 13-minute experimental animation that took me five years to complete because it reflects the grief of losing my mother. Each time I worked on it, I remembered the pain of her loss.
But I want to return now to speak about another film in progress. I am working on a documentary film that pays tribute to my teacher Jules Engel. In addition to many other animation artists, Engel taught Steve Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants. Engel’s students are prominent leaders in the animation industry and as university faculty: Mark Osborne, the co-director of Kung Fu Panda, Henry Selick who directed Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas, and those are only a few examples of students who made Engel such a significant figure in the world history of animation… Engel’s story hasn’t been fully told yet. Thus, the impetus for my documentary film on our teacher, Jules Engel.
Yesterday I was teaching the girls in class about what a concept is and how to have one. Students must learn how to create true content in their work. I speak about this now because I want to return to your question about workflow. I want to speak about an experimental animation film that I made entitled, Paris Is A Woman. The idea for this film was sparked when I lived in Paris and was walking across the plaza at Les Halles. I had a vision of my paintings moving in time. I realized in that moment that the next step to evolve my art would be to learn experimental animation. That idea was how I was “sent” to Jules Engel in California from Paris, France.
PJ: When you write a script for a film, you don’t really know how it will unfold, that takes time to develop and flourish as you’re doing it, and over time more ideas introduce themselves and become part of the story you are writing. After you’re fully done with it, you must find a producer or a financier who would finance the film. And a film maker spends a lot of time finding a producer who would believe in the film.
JD: Let’s take a studio production facility as an example of workflow, or as it is called in the animation industry, the “pipeline”. First, there is a script, and from the script is created a storyboard. Soon thereafter the actors are casted and the soundtrack is recorded. In tandem, character designers create the look and style of the film’s characters. Simultaneously, background designers begin to create background designs for the storyboarded scenes. Once the soundtrack is ready, the characters are animated for each scene by the animators. In studio filmmaking, the entire creative process starts with a script because it is the blueprint that builds the architecture of the movie or the animation.
WU: Back to Tawasol, which means connecting in Arabic, what is the event about is it about finding ways to connect the artist with the audience through the work of art, in this case film making or animation?
JD: The desire to connect is certainly present, but it shouldn’t be the sole objective of creating a work of art. An artist needs to communicate with others, but it shouldn’t be the main intention. If you think about that as an objective, specifically who is the artist communicating with? The real communication is with the idea itself. So, for me, Tawasol has been about teaching ways that an artist understands the importance of an idea in animation and creative ways to explore that idea.
PJ: I was astonished to see how students here managed to create great professional scrips in only three days, once the students understand that they should write for themselves not to an audience is when you see true art forming.
JD: I was very impressed with how bright and open to new ideas these students’ are. It took only two days to teach them before they began to see the fruit of their mental labor on the third and last day of their workshop as little animations with the zoetrope. I see a bright future for film making in Saudi Arabia. What is of interest to me about making art is that it is a global adventure because the history of art is available to everyone.
WU: Last question, if there is someone who is still young, and has a talent in animation or film making, how would you direct him or her to develop that talent?
PJ: The first steps are easy, get a pen and a piece of paper and jot down some basic ideas, after that they should start recording with any video camera they have, it shouldn’t be a fancy 8mm camera, all they need to do at the start is get that flow moving. Saudis have a fresh mind and a lot of desires to create.
JD: What many people don’t understand about animation is that the animator is an actor. Animators are simply too shy to act in front of the camera. The animator brings his or her own life force into an animation.
I recommend to any one who wants to become an animator to go to school and study and get an education! In education, you will learn your craft much faster than teaching yourself and you will have teachers to guide and mentor your creative process. I saw and met a lot of bright young women here at Dar Al Hekma who are eager to learn. I was very impressed by the School of Design and Architecture, the Chair of the Design Department, (Professor Schneider), and the entire International faculty. It was a true joy and privilege to participate in Tawasol!
www.InterDisciplinaryArtInstitute.com
June 20th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Thank you perfectionists for keeping up the good work.
well done.