puppet

Visit to FilmFair Animation Studios

AT THE END OF AN ALLEYWAY IN A TURNING OFF LONDON’S BAKER STREET LIE THE STUDIOS OF FILMFAIR. DAVID JEFFERSON WENT THERE TO MEET PROFESSIONAL PUPPET ANIMATOR BARRY LEITH.

Director of animation Barry Leith.

A lot of the rules of cartoon apply to three dimensional work and I was doing cartoons for two and a half years. You have to adapt it slightly because it’s a different media.

TV series work has always been double framed, to move the puppets on single frames wouldn’t double the time, it would treble it because you’ve got to be a lot more delicate. In fact there are very few people who ask for TV commercials to be single framed. The only time you have got to be careful with double framing is when you are combining it with live action because then the different sorts of movement become very apparent.

We are using a Bolex H16R 16mm camera. We got a guy to build this electric motor on for us. It gives a half second exposure. It has got a clutch on it so that it free rides along there and stops the film being jerked. It’s an ordinary commercial motor.

This Paddington puppet is new and his feet are a bit spongy, the fabric hasn’t worn really flat on the souls of his feet so when you stand him up he tends to faint, so you end up having to run a pin through to help him keep his balance, but give it about another two episodes and it will stand a lot easier. Lots of characters can actually balance for themselves when they are walking. If they have got to lean over to balance then if that character was for real he would lean over when he walks.

I have still got the first bit of film I ever did and it is terrible. It is too rushed because I was under the impression that every¬thing had to be moving. As far as I was concerned a freeze might have been six or eight frames but that is only a quarter of a second, you blink and you have missed it. It is surprising, you can leave a character standing there for as much as fifty frames, two seconds, if you bring him to a halt gently, shoot the fifty frames and start him off again very gently into his action.

I never place anything as a set. The camera sees it in the end so you may as well look through the camera and have another person moving the scenery until you get it in the right place to look good on film. If you move to a different angle and it looks a bit boring, you can change things a little. You can’t take them away, but you can alter the perspective of things to each other and the mind accepts it. The puppet is the predominant thing on the screen and the background is dressing for that.