Alex and his cat Mr Fluffkins have been having a pretty chilled time in lockdown, but life is about to change for these two... or is it?
Directed by ADEENA GRUBB & ANDY BIDDLE
Recently featured at our Short Film Open Mic, this short animation is an amazing feat of lockdown filmmaking. It just goes to show that lockdown doesn’t have to hinder creativity or even the quality of your work. We recently caught up with director Andy Biddle whose past credits include three Wes Anderson films - Fantastic Mr Fox (2008), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2013) and Isle of Dogs (2017). In 2011 Andy joined Laika in Portland, Oregon for a year to animate on Paranorman, directed by Chris Butler and Sam Fell. He was also involved in Ma Vie De Courgette (2015), Paddington Bear (2014) and Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
WE TYPICALLY ASK "WHAT WAS YOUR INSPIRATION TO WRITE YOUR FILM", BUT I THINK IN YOUR CASE IT'S PRETTY OBVIOUS, SO CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR WRITING PROCESS:
In terms of writing process, myself and Adeena had, for one reason or another, decided to make a little Easter loop back in April called Little Hoppy Horror. We were both keen to make more personal projects and this little loop was very much the birth of Alex and Mr Fluffkins. We'd enjoyed making Little Hoppy Horror so much, we were spurred on to make more work together. Adeena had seen that Seed Animation were looking for lockdown films and we thought it would be fun to do something a little more ambitious with 'lockdown' as the theme. Adeena and I found that we were a good partnership and generally improved each others ideas. One of us would come up with an idea and then the other would suggest something to make it even better.
MAKING A FILM WHILE IN LOCKDOWN IS QUITE IMPRESSIVE. HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO PULL IT OFF:
We knew this film was something we could do this after the success of Little Hoppy Horror so we generally followed the same lockdown film making formula. Adeena again made Alex and Mr Fluffkins as well a bunch of props and mailed them to me. I set up in my spare room and both lit and animated it. Another friend of ours called Malcolm Hadley is a DOP and had very kindly Uber'd over some decent film lights and kit which was obviously a huge help. Both Adeena and I shared the load with post production and Adeena took on the soundtrack and edit. So to answer the question, it wasn't hard at all. Adeena and I spoke every day to talk about direction, the edit, set dressing, lighting etc and it obviously helped that I had a spare room to shoot in but we both found the process relatively painless. We definitely want to do more together and plan to do so.
DID YOU HAVE ANY CREATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR WORKING ON A SMALL BUDGET:
Adeena and I are both what we have since termed "craft hoarders'. We both have a lot of crafty bits and pieces and props from old projects tucked away in drawers and boxes as well as random bits of rubbish that we deem "might come in useful one day" that most would throw away. And of course favours! I've already mentioned Malcolm lending us some lights - that was a huge help. Without his help it wouldn't look half as good.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE PART OF THE FILMMAKING PROCESS:
I work predominantly as an animator and Adeena works in art department and i think, for both of us, just the making of something that we'd come up with way the most exciting. We've both worked for other people for so long now that actually making something where we made the directorial decisions was amazing. I also personally loved lighting this project. It's not something I'd ever really done before so that was great fun. I also really enjoyed making something out of nothing. A piece of set for example that was very much an after thought was the door that I made out of a scrappy bit of wood. A professional model maker would scoff at my efforts but I knew that it didn't matter that it wasn't perfect because I knew light would add so much so it would still look good on camera.
WHAT'S YOUR NEXT PROJECT:
I am working on another collaborative project with another model maker called Claudia Brugnaletti and Adeena is continuing to work on a personal film she has been doing for a few months now.
My project with Claudia is about the meeting of two characters - an electric lamp and a candle and Adeena's project is about multiple date fails.
Interested in getting your work selected as Short of the Week?