Interview with Joseph Wallace, Director and Animator of Psychedelic, Cut-out Stop Motion Music Video for Canadian Artist Parker Bossley's "Chemicals"

Parker Bossley as seen in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

“I think the thing I’ve always found wonderful about cut out animation is that it’s one of the most immediate forms of animation,” muses British stop motion animation director Joseph Wallace – currently based in Bristol, UK, where, in January of this year, he founded the stop motion studio Hangar Puppet Animation Studio – in discussion of the medium he employed in his most recent film – the surreal, psychedelic music video for Canadian artist Parker Bossley’s debut single, Chemicals, which has already won a Vimeo Staff Pick. Perhaps more than anything else – perfectly suiting the film’s subject matter –the style and medium allow to film to transcend to time itself, just as Wallace implies, undoubtedly allowing the film to become just that – immediate. Almost so much so one gets the feeling they’re clawing at air in search for a handle on reality as they fall…along with Bossley – also the film’s protagonist – deeper and deeper into the film’s fantastic, bizarre dreamscape, one dreamed up entirely by Wallace.

Bossley in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

“I’m really not a fan of sitting in front of a computer for hours tweaking things in After Effects and, being inspired as I am by the methodologies of Eastern European animation, I always strive to do as much as I can practically and in-camera,” Wallace goes on to tell Stop Motion Geek. “There’s something about placing an effect on footage afterwards which feels a little soulless to me. Of course it can be a huge risk shooting these kind of effects in-camera as you can’t really adjust them afterwards, they are what they are, but I love that. There are subtleties and surprises and qualities in the way that textures and light respond that you couldn’t emulate with a digital effect.”

A frog seen in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

Aided by the medium’s handmade, heartfelt quality and Wallace’s whacky wit, the film is far from soulless, chock-full with zany surprise after zany surprise, both in terms of the journey the film takes its viewers on as well as the film’s extraordinarily imaginative application of the medium – a breed of cut-out which takes use of collages constructed from found images, encyclopedia pages, and magazines.

Bossley metamorphosing into a polar bear in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

Undoubtedly the final manifestation of these colleges – constructed and animated by Wallace and animator Marie Lechevallier – their “subtleties and surprises and qualities in the way that textures and light respond that you couldn’t emulate with a digital effect,” as Wallace so keenly puts it, would have been nearly impossible to achieve had Wallace not implemented the piece of equipment often utilized in stop motion as well as pre-digital cel animation known as the “multiplane camera.” The design of the multiplane was originally pioneered in the early twentieth century by German animators Charlotte “Lotte” Reiniger, Berthold Bartosch, and, in the United States, Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney. The animation pioneer whose multi-billion dollar company still bears his namesake describes the way in which the multiplane camera works in this video, the technique essentially boiling down to a many separate “planes” – plates of glass on which various elements of an animated scene are fixed, including characters, hand-drawn effects, and backgrounds – being stacked atop each other on a rack at varying distances from each other, giving a sense of depth when a camera films all of the layers head-on.

Bossley falling through a jungle in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

Wallace is no stranger to the style of cut-out animation, with Chemicals only being his most recent project to utilize the technique, preceded by 2009 short film The Life and Death of Isambard Kingdom Brunel – what Wallace deems his first “proper” cut out film, a film made whist he was at film school – and his 2014 short film Natural Disaster, a film equally curious and bizarre to Chemicals, despite the former taking place in a world slightly more grounded and emotionally relatable. A true aficionado of the medium, on each of his cut-out films Wallace worked to improve upon the design of his animation workflow by drawing from his expansive knowledge of the history of animation to improve upon the equipment’s design, advancing from a rudimentary one-layer system on The Life and Death of Isambard Kingdom Brunel to a slightly more sophisticated yet still rudimentary multiplane on Natural Disaster, to his more final, intricate multiplane used to bring Chemicals to life, taking inspiration from the design for Russian director Nicolaï Troshinsky’s and American animator Hayley Morris’s multiplanes.

Bossley metamorphosing into a fish in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wall

Despite cut-out being the style of animation used to bring to life Chemicals and several of his prior films, as well as being a medium he expresses interest in exploring in the future, Wallace admits that his true passion is for puppet animation. The most recent example of his work in puppet animation is the highly acclaimed, award-winning music video for the American pop/rock band Sparks, Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me), about which Stop Motion Geek interviewed Wallace – an article you can read by going here – as well as his associates: animators and model makers Roos Mattaar (whose interview you can read by going here) and Aiden Whittam (whose interview you can read by going here), and model maker Katrina Hood (whose interview you can read by going here).

Bossley with wings as seen in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

In our interview, Wallace discusses the inception of Chemicals – from his first being approached by Bossley to final concept – as well as how he used the time constraints Chemicals stipulated to his advantage, making for the project to become one of his most intimate undertakings. Furthermore, he gives us an in-depth look at how he built his own multiplane camera system, and how his style of cut-out evolved on the film, culminating in astonishingly intricate scenes and complex kaleidoscopic in-camera effects. He also discusses his process of selecting only one collaborator – the ingenious animator Marie Lechevallier, with whom our interview about her work on Chemicals will be soon released – to work with on the film, and describes their creative dynamic. Wallace also tells us about how the success of Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me) has impacted his life and career, as well as what’s next for him. You can read our interview below in full.

A.H. Uriah: Hello, Joseph! It’s great to feature you and your work on the blog again! The last time we talked Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me) was just picking up steam, both in terms of virality and its critical reception... proving strikingly successful in both realms. What are your takeaways from the success of Edith Piaf, especially in terms of your philosophy on your work and on the direction of your career?

Joseph Wallace: Thanks for having me back. Well I have been humbled by the response to the Sparks video, partly from the critical reception and it’s subsequent life on the festival circuit but also the reaction from fans of the band and others for whom the video struck a chord. I’ve had some wonderful emails from people who found fantastical escape in the video or who discovered my work through the piece, which is wonderful.

Cut-out photos of Bossley for the collage seen in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

Of course, it’s always great to have work out there on the circuit, both online and at festivals. It helps keep your name in people’s minds and enables the films to find an audience which is the ultimate goal. The Sparks video trended on both YouTube and Vimeo, played on BBC’s Newsnight and The One Show and featured on the Guardian online. It has since screened at over thirty international film festivals, won two awards and was nominated for the Kinsale Shark Awards and the British Animation Awards. I’ve met a lot of people through the video including some high-profile Sparks fans who’ve told me they love the video which is as surreal as it is charming! So it’s certainly opened some doors and there are two larger projects now brewing as a result of the video.

Cut-out photos for the collage in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

A.H.: Can you break down the timeline of the early development process of your most recent project – the music video for Parker Bossley’s Chemicals – from how you first became involved with the film to the start of the actual animation process?

JW: Chemicals was a fast turn around by all accounts. In January this year I founded a new stop motion studio in Bristol called Hangar Puppet Animation Studio. There’s been a lot of work to do on the space to get it set up for shooting animation productions, so I was in the middle of a lot of building work when the video came in and it was a great excuse to push towards some deadlines and also to build a new multiplane. My 2014 short Natural Disaster also employed cut out animation, but the multiplane set-up had been fairly basic and – in some ways – restrictive, and I was keen to have more scope for this video. So after Parker had approached me to make the video, we talked about the themes and ideas and the first thing I did was build a large new multiplane, then the actual animation, just over four minutes, was animated in about three weeks.

A cut-out puppet of a monkey for the collage seen in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

A.H.: In our previous interview, you mentioned that, “Collaboration is a hugely important aspect of creative practice for me. I know a lot of animators who work alone and I have a great deal of admiration for that but don’t think I’d be able to work like that myself. I really value having other artists around me to help realise my vision and to bring fresh energies, methodologies and ideas to a project.” Who were these creative people you collaborated with on Chemicals, and what did they bring to the table in terms of skill-sets, problem solving, and brainstorming?

JW: This video was a much more intimate affair than some of the other projects I’ve been working on recently. I wanted to have a creatively open process, allowing for improvisation and spontaneity. I also wanted the project to be manageable and not have to deal with a big team so I hired one collaborator: the brilliant French animator Marie Lechevallier who is a part of my new studio and also works at Aardman Animations here in Bristol. Marie joined me sporadically throughout the shoot and, having a background in cut out animation, her collage skills, movement ideas, and sense of humour were brilliant to have on board.

A cut-out puppet of Bossley for the collage seen in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

A.H.: You’re no stranger when it comes to cut-out stop motion, most notably in the form of your wildly funny gallivant through relatable real-life calamity and bizarre dreams, Natural Disaster, which won a Vimeo Staff Pick. How did your approach to Chemicals differ to that on Natural Disaster?

JW: Natural Disaster is probably the most real-world film I’ve made, in that most of my other films have been more poetic, dream-like fantastical worlds and Natural Disaster has human characters in a recognisable world, dealing with emotions that hopefully people can relate to. In some ways the visuals became a little too literal and bound by naturalism. For Chemicals I returned to the technique, most likely due to the Vimeo Staff Pick, as the singer Parker Bossley had seen the film online and wanted the video for his debut single to have the cut out animation technique. Because the song was really about taking a trip and had this slightly eighties feel with the synths, I felt the video could have a surreal, psychedelic quality to it. So I think the main differences are in the approach to the visuals, having more strange, collaged imagery, and also in terms of the approach, as the Chemicals video was improvised and dealt with associative imagery.

Joseph Wallace's camera setup positioned above his multiplane. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

A.H.: Chemicals very strongly takes root in experimental psychedelic animation in the style of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. What art – art in any medium – inspired the aesthetic and animation style of Chemicals? As a related question: Do you consciously draw from art that may be deemed an “inspiration” for a film you’re currently working on, or are you the type of artist who prefers to let your inspirations reveal their impression on your work unconsciously?

JW: I’ve actually, somewhat controversially and despite being a great lover of the Beatles, have never seen Yellow Submarine! As an artist, I’m constantly being inspired by many different things from music to performance, sculpture, nature, architecture. I have a hard drive on which I collect images and films, as well as physical folders with clippings from newspapers, postcards and prints. My apartment is full of old puppets and antiques and I have a huge library of art books from Picasso’s sculptures to the photography of Man Ray. I’m constantly surrounding myself with inspiration and letting that seep into my work in different ways.

Marie Lechevallier animating on Wallace's multiplane for Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

Because the turnaround on Chemicals was relatively quick and I’d had the provocation from Parker to return to cut out animation, I didn’t actually gather particular reference for the project as I might often do. When people think of cut out animation there are certain names that come to mind: Terry Gilliam, Michel Ocelot, Oliver Postgate. But for me there’s a wider world of cut out with the work of Polish artists like Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk (who actually inspired Gilliam in his youth) and then, beyond that, the surrealist collages of German artist Max Ernst and Czech artist Jindrich Styrsky are absolutely sublime. Those are the artists that tend to be in the back of my head when working in this medium. For Chemicals, the one artist that I did think of before production, who created neither animation nor collage, was Dutch painter Karel Appel. I love the energy and colour and abstraction in his paintings and I wanted to capture a sense of that in the video.

Cut-out photos for the collage seen in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

A.H.: Can you describe for us how you built the multiplane camera system for Chemicals? What are the pros and cons – as far as you see it – to working with a multiplane in terms of your animation workflow?

JW: My first proper cut out film, The Life and Death of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (2009) – which was made whilst at film school – had very little animation and the animation it did have was fairly limited. It was shot all on one layer and consequently lacked depth. For my second cut out film Natural Disaster (2014), which was made whilst living and working in France, I set up a modest multiplane which consisted of two sheets of glass stacked up on bricks and had the possibility of three layers including the background. This allowed for a sense of depth, objects and characters being able to pass each other, and more of a three-dimensional space. Whilst in France I saw a film called Astigmatismo by Russian director Nicolaï Troshinsky. I was blown away by the film’s sense of depth and the contrast between cut out paper and three dimensional space so, for Chemicals, I was keen to purpose-build a multiplane. I wanted to make a structure that would enable a larger field of vision and also greater possibility for depth, and could be used not just for this project but also for future projects.

Wallace's multiplane built for Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

There are various approaches to building multiplanes, from Disney’s early behemoth to Troshinsky’s complex contraption with various moving parts. I’d seen images of American animator Hayley Morris’s set up which looked effective, and also my friend, Rotterdam-based animator Tess Martin, had built her own multiplane which I’d seen up close in the Netherlands last year. Tess advised on thickness of glass and a few other points, which was useful, and I then ordered lots of steel and had big sheets of glass cut to size at a local glass shop and put the whole thing together with Marie in a couple of days. In the end it is taller than I am, but allows for many possibilities in terms of where the glass layers can sit. They’re easily moved by unscrewing bolts and moving the shelves up and down. Having a tall multiplane allows for a massive amount of depth but actually, in using magazine cut outs and found images, the compositions tend to be relatively small so, in the end, we were only using a small field within the glass sheets.

Marie Lechevallier animating on the mutliplane set of Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

I think the thing I’ve always found wonderful about cut out animation is that it’s one of the most immediate forms of animation. I’ve run workshops before where I’ve got participants making animations with cut outs under the camera as it’s quite instinctive and you can learn the principles of animation very quickly. It enables you to play with timing and shape and movement without worrying about gravity and other physical factors. Although puppet animation is really where my heart is, cut out animation is a technique I want to return to at some point and, instead of using found images, actually paint or draw all the elements and then animate them, similar to some of the early Polish works.

Wallace's multiplane in the midst of being built. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

A.H.: One of the most stunning sequences in Chemicals begins at about 2:25, when the style of animation transitions from a slightly more simplistic style where a single cut-out puppet represent each subject to a kaleidoscopic realm where every character is seen in multiples. As I imagine this effect was done in-camera – and please correct me if I’m wrong – it seems quite an intimidating endeavor to animate. How did you go about solving this technical puzzle?

JW: You’re absolutely right: Every effect you see in the video was done in-camera other than some subtle augmented camera moves. The moment where Parker looks into the water and sees the fish was shot through glass and the kaleidoscope visuals were a practical effect under the lens. I’m really not a fan of sitting in front of a computer for hours tweaking things in After Effects and, being inspired as I am by the methodologies of Eastern European animation, I always strive to do as much as I can practically and in-camera. There’s something about placing an effect on footage afterwards which feels a little soulless to me. Of course it can be a huge risk shooting these kind of effects in-camera as you can’t really adjust them afterwards, they are what they are, but I love that. There are subtleties and surprises and qualities in the way that textures and light respond that you couldn’t emulate with a digital effect.

Joseph Wallace's in-camera kaleidoscopic effect as seen in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

It is possible to buy kaleidoscope lenses that fit onto Canon cameras but, costing prohibitive amounts of money, I decided I could most likely build a rig that would work to achieve the same effect. After a morning of trial and error, as there often is, I built a rig that strapped onto the camera with a ring sitting just underneath the camera lens where I could place a kaleidoscope lens which could then be animated millimetre-by-millimetre, frame-by-frame, to give the impression of spinning duplications.

The final kaleidoscopic effect seen in Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

A.H.: In closing, what art – and I’m going to leave the definition of this up for your interpretation – has inspired you lately, and why?

JW: Right now, I’ve been listening to a lot of old Italian film soundtracks. Those are particularly evocative whilst I’ve been writing the screenplay for my new film. I’m also particularly fascinated by sub-Saharan African art and Oceanic sculpture. This kind of work has been a big inspiration for the look of my new film, which I’m working on at the moment.

One of the kaleidoscopic scenes seen in Dragonframe. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

In the realm of animation, the other month I went to a screening at Regents Street Cinema with my colleague Suzanne Buchan, who’s just taken over running the MA at the Royal College of Art. There we saw a programme of works by the Czech filmmaker Jiří Brdečka. whose films I wasn’t particularly familiar with previously. The scope of his animations and the styles he employed were really breathtaking, in particular Metamorphoses, which is based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and has an underlying commentary about the occupation of Czechoslovakia in the sixties.

The mutliplane set of Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

I’ve also been watching and re-watching the work of Kurt Weiler. Weiler’s history is incredible: He escaped a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, studied the arts in Oxford having fled to the UK and, like many animation artists from Svankmajer to Trnka, worked for a time in the puppet theatre. His films are full of such humour and wit, surreal imagery and brilliantly vivid characters, that they are an absolute inspiration for me right now. For those who haven’t seen his under-appreciated body of work, seek it out!

Joseph Wallace animating on the set of Chemicals. Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace.

You can explore more of Joseph Wallace’s work by visiting his website, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

You can read Stop Motion Geek’s previous interview with Joseph Wallace – the subject of which is the music video for the band Spark’s “Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)” – by going here. You can also read Stop Motion Geek’s interviews with Wallace’s associates on the project by clicking on their successive names: animator and model maker Roos Mattaar, model maker Katrina Hood, animator and model maker Aiden Whittam.

You can stream Parker Bossley’s “Chemicals” by going here.

You can watch Chemicals by going here.

You can stay tuned for upcoming interviews and articles by subscribing to Stop Motion Geek via the “subscribe” button at the top right corner of our homepage, by following us on our Facebook @StopMotionGeek, or by following us on our Instagram @stop.motion.geek.blog.