Please tell us about making the film, did you write as well as create it?
The film taught me many lessons through making mistakes and overcoming limitations.
The most important thing to me was to be able to share a message – fight the fear of the unknown – by leaving a comfort zone and taking control of one’s own steps in life.
The film was a result of the same feelings of being stuck, afraid of what’s next.
In that context, I combined my early passions of small handcrafted objects with a way of bringing my illustrations to life.
Stop motion was just the right format – but I had never done anything quite like it before, neither did I have the proper tools for it.
I explored the net and learnt everything I could from constructing puppet armatures to animation and lighting techniques in a process of trying, making mistakes and trying again.
I wrote the story, did a storyboard, and spent some time constructing all the sets and puppet, then animated all the moving things, step by step.
What were the main challenges of making the film? Did you train in stop-motion?
Animating was quite a challenge – requiring a lot of patience, especially when I wanted a scene to just finish so I could go home 20 km away from the studio, sometimes in the rain and snowy weather.
Other times, animating was very pleasant and everything worked smoothly when my brain entered the void and automatically understood the intricate multiple object animation technique and the timings of everything.
When finishing a scene, I could see everything moving by itself, and the magic was there, happening, providing me with more creative juice to keep going on, to start the next scene. I started realizing that the more I animated the robot with smooth human movements, paradoxically, the more of a robot I became myself, with automatic movements moving step by step, checking the camera, shooting one frame, moving again, in a 400 frame scene.
We learnt that you made the film while attending Fabrica in Italy – please tell us about the experience and what the key lessons were that you learnt there.
Working with a team is exciting and challenging – the more heads you have on a project, the more complex it becomes to get a common result. At the same time, you have the chance to learn from adaptation, tolerating the clear different thoughts from different minds, and start realizing many points of view, from other perspectives and other cultural backgrounds. The more conflict you have, the stronger an idea gets, since it excludes the weak ideas, focusing on a good result. That for sure was important to learn.
And working closely with different minds and different creative personalities, I realized that every one has some fear of not succeeding, fear of what’s next, but that is absolutely normal when we are trying hard to challenges ourselves. The fear protects us, at the same time it pushes us to a new level.
Please tell us about the sets – they’re very detailed and of course look massive.
The sets were made with cardboard parts, old computer parts, twisted wire, paint, and pretty much with things you can find at a local art shop. I kept in mind a post apocalyptic environment, rusty elements, steampunk color palette and inventiveness.
Luca Carrara at Fabrica helped me construct two sets. We became great friends and explored the power of inventiveness together… doing more with less, and we had great fun constructing things.
Your worst nightmare production story was when….
I entered on frame, in front of the camera, ruining a four-minute, one-shot music video, in the rain that was really difficult to reproduce, with many elements going on. Also.. when the leg of the robot broke, in the middle of a 400 frame scene, with this film.
Are you represented?
I’m developing some commercials with a local production house, but I’m open to all proposals.
I would love to be represented in France: the place, the locations, the people, the creative industry, many reasons to go abroad.
