Stop Motion Geek

Carlos Bleycher profile photo. Source: http://carlosbleycher.com/index.html “The most important thing for any genre are the characters,” Carlos Bleycher—veteran scriptwriter, content consultant, and story editor, with numerous credits spanning animated and children-oriented content in his native Spanish as well as English for the likes of Disney xD, Cartoon Network LA, and Discovery Kids—tells Stop Motion Geek. “That’s why it’s so important to have strong characters that feel real, and then use your premise as an ‘excuse’ to flesh out their personalities, dreams, fears, everything.” After getting his start in the industry writing for sitcoms, Bleycher—inspired by the “countless hours of watching cartoons” he consumed as a child along with a healthy dose of ambition—made a conscious shift towards writing for animated programming aimed at children—an oft-snubbed dimension of scripted programming. To Bleycher, however, respecting such an audience is his highest priority in crea...

Billy Whiskers: The Mystery of the Misplaced Trowel  title card. Source: Vimeo. “I think it must have been early Aardman stuff that first got me interested in stop motion,” filmmaker and animator James Wilkinson tells Stop Motion Geek, identifying the traits of his influences in animation that fashioned his own cinematic sensibilities, and were, at least in some small way, part of the genesis of his latest film—the charming, funny, and gorgeously realized noir spoof, Billy Whiskers: The Mystery of the Misplaced Trowel . “The gentle English ambiance and humour were so appealing to me as a kid and I just wanted to try and replicate it!” First seen as a youth, Wilkinson’s stop motion inspirations made a lasting impression on him, giving him a passion for the medium that initially took shape as a hobby. As an adult, that passion stayed with him, fueling his studies of film production at university. After graduation, it blossomed into a fully-fledged career as the Managing Di...

Barry Purves holding the Tchaikovsky puppet for his film Tchaikovsky – An Elegy . Source: http://puppetsandclay.blogspot.com/2011/08/lo-ultmo-de-barry-purves-plume-y.html “I worry that animators strive to recreate reality, whereas I think animation should liberate us from reality,” Barry Purves—critically renowned film and theatre director, scriptwriter, stop motion animator, and author of celebrated books about and lecturer on the art and craft of the medium—tells Stop Motion Geek, in a snapshot articulating a philosophy that’s colored his approach to performance in theatre and animation, embodying a theme recurring throughout our interview: of finding himself in a unique season of reflection upon his career thus far, and the legacy in the wake of which he’s already left behind. “Not just in the movement,” he goes on, “but in the storytelling, the use of colour, and sound, and so forth. I find ballet and opera and theatre to sometimes be so painfully honest and truthful—an...