“In animation I control everything – I’m like God!” So said Bill Plympton, acclaimed director of independent American animation, at this year’s Anilogue Festival (Nov. 29-Dec. 2, 2007). In Budapest for the first time to help jury at the 4-day festival, we talked about ‘Plympton’s dogmas’ and his new film, Idiots and Angels, which had its first European test screening at Anilogue.
Funzine: First, let’s talk about your
Bill Plympton: It happened two years ago. I was in France, walking down the street with someone, who asked me: “what’s your next film?” And I answered: ‘about a bad guy who grows wings, he becomes an angel and he doesn’t like it.’ That’s a good idea, and I say: yes, I can do this. That night at my hotel room is when I started getting really inspired. Most of my ideas, I know where they come from, but this one, I don’t know. That was a lucky accident.
F: You immediately sat down and wrote the story?
P: Yes, I wrote the story and ideas I can put in there, the characters and the visual sketches.
F: What do you generally do first, start with writing or drawing?
P: Write. Little ideas that I can show, and at the same time I do some sketches, design of the characters, what they look like, what kind of city they would live in, what kind of car he would have, and it sort of grows. I also do all the backgrounds, all of the storyboards, all of the concepts. It took me about a year to write the script, and then about a year to draw it. Right now we’re in the process of coloring and putting the sound in there, doing all the effects and music.
F: You work with just five people at the Plymptoons studio. Isn’t it hard?
P: Yes, because I finance my films out of my own pocket, so I need to save money everywhere possible. The more things I do myself, the less expense I have. But I must say that when we’re coloring we bring animation students there to help, so we have a staff of about 20 working at home. They do it with leisure, but they’re working for Bill Plympton – it’s a nice situation. [laughs] The film should be done in about two months, maybe one, and the plan is to get it into the Berlin Festival and maybe Cannes. One thing that’s pretty interesting is I have something called an “anicam”. Did you hear about it?
F: No, I don’t think so.
P: I don’t think anybody has done it before, it’s kind of a fun idea. Over my drawing board, I put a little camera, and we hook it up to the internet, and you can see me draw every drawing.
F: Like a web camera, or what?
P: Exactly. We call it the “anicam”. We get people from all over the world, China, Africa, and they would say: “Wow, look at him drawing his film and he’s not using a computer!” People don’t understand and believe that actually people draw a film by hand! So, it’s really exciting for a lot of people to say that anybody can make a film. You don’t need big computer software and have millions of dollars of computers; you can do it by yourself. That was the real part of this film; people see my hand and I was naked and there were no clothes on my hand.
F: If you don’t want to use computers to draw in the future, how can you make new visual effects?
P: We do use computers for something – for scanning the drawings, and if we want to put little lightening effects, or move things around, we can do that with a computer. But all the imagery you see is all hand-drawn by me with pencil and paper. I brought some drawings I would show to you, but unfortunately left them at the hotel room. You know what? I’m drawing for you!
F: Is it true that you can make a drawing in just one or two minutes?
P: Yes, they go really fast. I’m drawing you something, wait!
[drawing ensues]
Here you are! A sketch from Idiots and Angels.
F: Thank you so much! If you had to describe your new film in under 5 words, what would they be?
P: Dark, real, mysterious, and evil.
F: Is it your world, or just your fantasy world?
P: It’s completely my fantasy world. I wanted to make a film that was more adult. Because most of my films are comedies; crazy, surreal comedies about sex and violence. This film is not just about sex and violence; it has deeper, philosophical meaning. It’s more of a soulful film, and I think it’ll attract a little bit different audience than my past films have.
F: Do you think your old audience will love this new atmosphere, or would you rather get
P: I hope the old audience will still like it. I mean my old audience was 16 year old boys; they love all of the sex and violence, but this is a little more of a brain-film than a violent film, more sensual. So I hope I get a new audience as well: a little older, more women, maybe. But I still hope the old audience likes the film.
F: Have you ever thought about making a live-action feature film?
P: I did. I made three real movies, back in the ‘90s. They were terrible failures. I lost a lot of money on them, so I would not do another live action feature unless someone comes to me and says: “here is a million dollars; we want you to make a film!”, because the problem is I have no control. In animation I control everything: the weather, the actors, the background – I’m like God! But when you do live action, there are so many things that can go wrong; the actors get sick, the weather turns bad, the cameraman puts the film in the camera wrong, we have no control. That’s my problem with live action films.
F: How many films do you plan for the future?
P: I’m really happy where I am now. I’m doing a feature film every 3 years, maybe 2 years, it depends, and I do two shorts a year. And it’s a very nice situation for me, it’s not a rush, it’s not crazy. I’m doing what I like to do, and maybe I do some commercials, a couple of music videos. I’m working on a book now with Kanye West; he’s very big in America, very popular.
And also I’m doing this “Dog” series, it’s very popular, and so I’m doing the third one now. It’s called Hot Dog. The dog works for a fire company and everything burns down. He’s such a stupid dog. That’ll be finished in 2-3 months.
F: What do you think about this festival, how do you feel here?
P: Well, I think this festival is really important for Hungary, because I know Hungary has a strong animation history, with Pannonia Films, and also the film 8th District (Nyócker) is very popular. So I think this festival is important to bring back the kids, young people who want to be animators, and expose them to animation from around the world. They can meet people, famous directors – like Bill Plympton – and actually talk to me and say, you know, “what do you suggest, how do you do this?” So this festival is very important in bringing a renaissance of animation to Hungary.
I want to say one more thing: I have three rules for big success in animation. I call it “Plympton’s dogma”. Rule number one is to make your film short, like 5 minutes. If it’s too long, nobody would buy it. Rule two is to make your film cheap, which means a thousand dollars a minute or less. If it’s too expensive, uses lots of digital technology or famous music, or famous voices, it will be too expensive and you’ll never make your money back. And finally rule three: make your film funny. If your film is funny, short and cheap, everybody in the world will want to buy it and you’ll become rich like me!
Interview by Nora Demők
A selection of Bill Plympton’s short films:
Your Face
25 Ways to Quit Smoking
Guard Dog/Guide Dog
Hair High
