Tina Kakadelis
Film-making, as a whole, is a time-consuming, miraculous art form. There is perhaps no subset of the art more time-consuming than that of stop motion animation. To make a one-minute work of stop motion animation, you would need about 1,440 still images and a 90-minute feature would have around 64,800 photos. Aardman Animation Studios is an iconic group that is responsible for films like Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run. At Aardman Animation Academy is where filmmaker Lucy Davidson created her stop motion short film, Baggage. The short film follows three friends as they check in for their flight at their airport and all that they are carrying is put under scrutiny.
Ahead of Baggage‘s international premiere at SXSW, Lucy Davidson sat down with Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis to discuss female friendships, the tedious nature of stop motion, and how friendships can alleviate our deepest insecurities.
The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Film Obsessive: I saw that you did a gap year at Disney World…
Lucy Davidson: That’s deep stalking (laughs)!
I like to be prepared! I also did a gap year at Disney, so I have to ask where you worked.
It’s really weird. I’d never been to the parks before and I manifested where I wanted to be, and that’s where I ended up. I was in Cosmic Ray’s in Tomorrowland. Before I went, I looked at all the outfits and the Cosmic Ray’s outfits are so cute. I wanted to wear that.
There’s that singing alien. Sonny Eclipse, right? Many hours hearing all of his songs. It was a fun time! Where were you?
Funny enough, I picked up a week’s worth of shifts at Cosmic Ray’s. I was mainly at the little carts in Adventureland, Frontierland, and Liberty Square.
I think I probably picked up a shift at Pinocchio’s. It’s such a fun place.
Moving to your work now, because Disney isn’t why we’re here. Your medium is stop animation, which is extremely tedious. What drew you to that very time-consuming artform?
It’s funny. I’m not a patient person. I’m so impatient. It’s really bizarre that I actually got into this form of animation. I hate computers. Anything digital I will do if I have to, but I came from a bit of a fine arts background. My heart is in painting, drawing, and sculpture. All that tangible, real-world art. I’ve always loved film, so it’s kind of a way to bridge them together.
Why stop motion? I don’t know, I think I saw it and I was like, ‘oh wow, that’s magic’. I feel like when I went to Disney, my subconscious was starting to set the seeds. I came back and I got really into Monty Python, especially Terry Gilliam’s animations. They’re so silly and funny, I wanted to do that. Then I went off to university and just got hooked on stop motion.
There must be something in the water because after Disney, I got really into rotoscoping for a couple months, and I was like, this is the greatest thing that’s ever existed.
Yeah, I guess that’s what happens!
Your short film, Baggage, was made as part of the Aardman Animation Academy. I know it’s a short academy, so what was that timeline like in making Baggage?
It was really crazy. I arrived in January last year, and before we got there, we all more or less had an idea of our project. I would say mine was nowhere near where it ended up being. All I knew was my story was going to be about female friendship, emotional baggage, and going to the airport. I hadn’t worked out any of the plot points. I had vague ideas of how the characters looked. I had designs, but I hadn’t progressed too far. Those first few months were script development and doing mock-up characters. Just kind of thinking, ‘oh my God, what do I want this to be’?
At times, I was like, ‘oh, maybe it’s just going to be lots of people at the airport’. It would be just a general vignette taste of everyone’s baggage. Then, I knew that I wanted this to be a very female-centered story, and that was really important to me. I stuck it out and I was like, ‘okay, how am I going to tell these friends’ story’? I created the story and started in the middle. I knew the characters would have suitcase bodies and it would start at check-in and end in security. You’re never going to see them go on holiday.
I started animating maybe three months in, and because I didn’t know where the story was going, I started from the middle. I did all the conveyor belt scenes first, so I knew I had to get them on the conveyor belt. Let’s just start there. I worked my way to the end, and the last one I shot was the opening sequence. Very topsy-turvy.
Being at Aardman really supported my chaotic process. I learned so much about how I work, and you hope those lessons are taken to the next project.
You said the characters aren’t going on holiday, but I saw on your Instagram that they’re traveling around a little bit for festivals. What are they made of? Did you give them names?
Yeah, I’ve got one here! I never gave them names. Everyone wants to know what their names are. I could give them names at this point, but I don’t know. I haven’t felt a name for her yet, but I’ll take suggestions.
They’re actually made of wood, kind of like a little jigsaw set. I cut out all these little paddles and glued them together. Amazingly enough, it worked. They’ve got different pieces and I could turn her head, her hand pops on and off. Things can move around. I did try to avoid walking as much as possible because her legs, they do move, but not very great.
She’s about 25cm tall. However big you make your puppets, you’ve got to make your sets five times bigger to cover it. It’s a challenge, but I only chose two colors—black and white. That made painting the sets pretty chill.
Yeah, she’s like my baby now.
You should name her after some sort of luggage company.
I know, do they want to sponsor me (laughs)? Like, I’ll call her Samsonite or whatever.
Sami!
Oh my gosh! That might be a winner. The kind of suitcase I chose for all three of the women is about embodying their personalities. So she’s modeled on those hard, plastic Samsonite cases. She’s a really tough exterior, whereas the other one was a bit more designer. Kind of alluding to the fact that she’s got everything neat and organized. The other friend is a bit more crazy, had stickers of all the places that she’s been.
Speaking of everything that’s inside…well, I guess I’ll call her Sami now. There are these little pieces of insecurities like late bloomer, low social battery pack, etc. What are some of the other pieces of the baggage within the baggage that you wanted to highlight or that were maybe cut in brainstorming?
I mean, a lot of it was just kind of my own insecurities. Just bringing up how I feel I match up against my friends. Maybe I don’t feel like I’m at the same stage of my life as them, or different things. It was just honestly coming up with so many internal things I myself feel. A little bit of brainstorming with friends in the academy as well.
I probably did make a bunch of little pieces of baggage, but I would choose to put ones in shots that worked at that moment. Especially in the scene where the security guard is finished rummaging through her and she’s all exposed. She’s just completely emotionally destroyed. All those items on display like the ABBA “S.O.S.” record, I think there’s one that says you’re an idiot, and one that’s internal judgment. She’s just given up. It was fun and tricky to create those internal baggages.
For the story, I knew she needed one item to get her in trouble. It took forever to work out. I love gags, puns, and jokes. Once I’d settled on the bottle, I was like, hey, bottled-up emotions. That’s the joke I went for there.
I think, as well, the “I miss my mom” piece was about how we don’t talk about grief very openly. That’s something lots of us carry around, grief for losing someone. Whether it’s still acceptable to be sad about that, which it is, you can definitely be sad about that loss for as long as you need. That’s the beauty of having friends. It could be years later that you’ve lost someone really special to you, but they’re still there for you.
What really jumped out to me was the ABBA record. I was like, man, the amount of times I’ve cried to an ABBA song is really bad.
There was lots of ABBA when I was animating this (laughs).
What always impresses me about short films is the ability to convey so much in such a short amount of time. What do you feel is the benefit and the hardest part of condensing this story of grief and female friendship into, what, four minutes?
Yeah, it runs at four minutes, thirty seconds, and then another thirty seconds of credits. It’s a really tight short.
But it doesn’t feel quick. It feels like everything gets time to unfold. It never feels rushed. I’m always so impressed by short films in that regard.
Oh, that’s fantastic. It’s definitely a challenge, but actually it’s a challenge that I thoroughly love. It almost feels like a reverse puzzle. Clarity is so important. I want it to be clear, so it’s good that it didn’t feel rushed to you.
From the get-go, because I had a clear vision of what I wanted it to be, even though I didn’t know exactly how to make it happen, I knew I was trying to hit certain points. Honestly, sometimes I’m like, ‘how did I do it’? Lots of brainstorming and I had a lot of good mentors. I wrote the story almost as an essay. Like, ‘this is my opening argument, this follows next, and here’s my conclusion’. That was a really fun way to visualize a story. It was like, ‘oh, yeah, I’m just trying to persuade people a little bit’, I guess.
You mentioned before that you came in with an idea of wanting to highlight platonic friendships and the love that exists there, which I think is still sadly underrepresented in all media. Why did you feel this was the relationship you wanted to highlight?
At first, it came from the sense that I felt like, sometimes, female-driven stories aren’t written by women. That was, at first, really important for me. I want to be telling my own story. It’s fine when it’s someone else who isn’t female telling the story, but I think there’s some strength internally in telling my own story.
I got that response when I would try to explain the story to some men, they just didn’t get it. Every woman got it. That’s my target audience. I’m always impressed and amazed when men enjoy my film. That’s great, I love that.
Then I thought about the female friendships in my life. When I was first going to apply to the academy, I was like, what relationship do I care about that I want to explore? I have a beautiful relationship with my sister, so it could have been a sister story. I just thought about my female friendships. Those were the girls I went to high school with, and I thought, ‘I love these guys so much’. They mean so much to me. There were a few different emotional things that had happened the previous year, and it kind of just felt right. Baggage was a tribute to them. Friendship is such a beautiful story. There should be more stories about that. Romantic love isn’t everything.
So, SXSW…will you be attending?
I will be attending! Yeah, I’m so excited I can’t wait. It’s my first time in Texas, so I don’t really know what to expect. I think, probably most of my time, I’ll just be going to events at the festival, hanging at the Australia house. Obviously seeing my film. I’ll be bringing Sami along. Are you going to be off to Texas?
Yeah, I will be there! Definitely would love to say hi, say hi to Sami as well. My last question for you is just a bit of a fun one. Are you an over-or-under-packer?
Oh, I love that. I think I’m an over-packer who’s learned to become an under-packer. That’s been a nice thing. When I’m showing people the film, they come up to me afterwards and they’re telling me their baggage. They’re like, ‘oh, if I was the character, what would be inside me’? That’s been a really nice response.
Thank you so much for your time, Lucy!
