Interesting interview in The
Wrap with Australian animator Adam Eliot. Six years ago he won an Oscar for his
short film, “Harvie Krumpet” and now his claymation feature “Mary and Max” is
up for an Academy Award. Considering
that the competition includes “Up” and very few people have seen “Mary and
Max,” it’s a long shot, but so was “Harvie Krumpet.”
I had a look at the trailer
at www.maryandmax.com and it looks
great—not one for the kids, though. Here is what Eliot says about being
different:
“…from “Harvie Krumpet” I
learned that bring different is not a bad thing. Being unique can actually be
quite an advantage. I think that’s one of the reasons we won the Oscar. And of
course I’ve gotten to travel, and I got to go to Pixar and Disney and
DreamWorks and also to a lot of animation festivals in Europe, and they are
very respectful and very embracing of my work. So I’ve stopped worrying about
trying to fit in.”
About his writing process: “I don’t obsess with
plot in those early stages. I obsess with detail, which is sort of a backwards
way of doing things. I start with the details, and hope that by the third or
fourth draft the plot magically appears. I’m obsessed with human nature and
human idiosyncracies, and that’s really where it all starts. I always believe
that if you start with that, all that stuff that’s in scriptwriting books will
come.”
The production process took
five years in all, including six months doing all the storyboarding himself. He
says he worked seven days a week on it, barely seeing his family.
After winning his Oscar, he
had other offers, but here’s what he says about sticking to his own work: “I
think it all comes down to creative control and freedom. I love standing at the
back of a cinema with 300 people watching a film I spent five years making,
knowing that I didn’t have to change the ending, I didn’t have to homogenize
anything, I didn’t have to water anything down. It’s more like a painting, I
suppose. I had all these collaborators, but at the end of the day it was the
painting that I wanted to paint. If that makes sense.”
(For guidance on writing your masterpiece, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and to get inspired get a copy of "Creativity Now!" published by Pearson.)
