What did you ask me to write? ‘A short sequence offering some insight into the influences and processes by which Moving Still arrived at their chosen visualisation style for this contemporary representation of a medieval English classic text.’
Well, I start every animated film with a visual concept, borne of the story and of the images the story brings to mind. For ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ I thought of English line illustration for children’s books of the late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries, which so beautifully captured the sense of a lost age. I thought, too, of Harry Clarke – an Irish illustrator of the early twentieth century, whose work carried a sexual charge just right for a tale of thwarted love and tortured chastity.
See how impure an art animation is? We steal shamelessly! Sorry, but we do. Beware of misunderstanding ‘originality’ if you want to be an artist, lest you place yourself at a terrible disadvantage.
The likely budget influences my vision, too. In this case, I thought, just enough for good, simple animation, an elegantly inked finish and a cost-effective wash of limited colour. I also gave myself a warning – do not experiment. This time you won’t get away with it. All will end in disaster and you will never work for Channel 4 again. (More advice for those wanting to work in the arts – you are always afraid you won’t get away with it this time.)
Once I actually started turning the script into images my understanding of the story grew. This is because turning a story into images is a way of thinking. And by thinking about the story you come to understand it better. All too often, though, the neat visual concept you started out with develops too. The trick is to allow development, without losing control of the film, for animation is a simple process with an infinite capacity for going off the rails.
In the case of ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, what started out as a courtly fable became something much more personal – more to do with the poet’s own memories. I visited the Green Chapel itself where I found all the elements of landscape described in the poem – but in a different order. As when you revisit a scene from childhood to find all you remembered – but smaller and ordered differently.
But what happened to the simple line drawings of my initial concept I hear you cry?
Channel 4 gave me more money than I was expecting. Now, instead of plundering Harry Clarke’s illustrations I could plunder his stained glass. So I had to experiment, after all, but we got away with it – this time.
