I was really inspired by Caroline Leaf’s work and practice after attending her talk. While I had previously watched a few of her films, I had never looked into her background and journey through the animation world, from innovating a new way of animating using sand to getting funded to direct and animate all of her films.
Hearing her talk about having to fulfil all the roles in the making of an animation was particularly interesting. While it is a lot of work to complete an animation mostly, if not entirely on your own, there is a sense of creative freedom that comes along with it. In addition, from my experience directing my LIAF film, whilst working in a team does provide many benefits, you do have to spend time making sure everyone is on the same page and is working towards something, which eats into my animation time.
I was also intrigued by the fact that many of her films were adapted from existing scripts, such as short stories and myths, especially as I think coming up with ideas is one of my weaker areas. Caroline Leaf speaks about the challenges of adaptation, especially in ensuring scenes are interesting and serving a purpose. I really enjoy thinking of different ways to frame a scene and adding visual intrigue, and I think I would really enjoy the opportunity to adapt a work of fiction.
Still from The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa, directed by Caroline Leaf
Even though I do really enjoy stop motion and hope to continue with this path in the future, a part of me still gets extremely stressed by the idea of animating straight ahead under the camera. I find myself drawn towards techniques that still allow me to return to a previous frame and re-capture it under the camera: my LIAF film was made with sewing notions and fabric that, while not perfectly, can be realigned to fix a mistake made earlier in the shot, and my current 1-min collaborative film in papercut allows me the same luxury.
However, I think become more comfortable in animating without the safety net of an “undo button” would be very valuable learning experience. Hearing Caroline Leaf speak about shooting stop motion on film and being unable to see the final result until it’s been developed really emphasised the sense of timing you develop from this method, as well as the ability to embrace mistakes and errors into part of the style.
More information on Caroline Leaf was found through her website: