As much as a primary colour palette and block-like human bodies can show an honest reality, these animated shorts do. Layered with humour and cynicism, Orchard’s short film work expose an ambivalent and often relatable outlook. “Welcome to Glaringly” criticises the media and its hypocritical readership, but Orchard offsets his opinions with a punchline, cushioning what could be a harsh indictment. “It’s just a messy, junky world,” Charlie Kaufman writes. Sure, and poking fun at it might be the only sane depiction.

Q & A with Mr. Orchard

Laura: Relating to Love Sport - are you a sports fan? Did the series come out of a real -life enjoyment of sports? Is it a criticism of the hyped up adverts and the glorification of people like David Beckham that surround the sports industry?

Grant: I’m a big sports fan. I’ve wasted untold hours in front of the box gormlessly digesting late night screenings of darts or snooker, curling, crown Green Bowling, sumo, hockey, anything on Trans World Sport. That’s my favourite.
I don’t just suck it up with my eyes; I’ve been known to participate too. “Park Foot Ball” was based on a lifetime of knocking a ball around a muddy green strip. There’s nothing overtly satirical or pointed about the Love Sport films. I do genuinely love sport, but I can also see why other people dislike it. There’s something inherently silly about all sports, and you don’t have to exaggerate them that much to make them laughable. With Love Sport though it’s all done, I like to think, in quite an affectionate way.

Laura: Why do you prefer to work in animation as opposed to using actors, sets etc? How does this change the director experience?

Grant: I suppose it’s down to the fact I’m not naturally confident. I do think you need that if you’ve got to coerce so many people to work with you. You do still work with people in animation but it seems to be in a quieter way.
With live action you have to project yourself and your ideas, but when you start off in animation, at least when I first got into animation at a student level, you have that option of keeping your ideas very much to yourself and to not come out of that shell until you have some kind of finished piece. I think that private, solitary way of working is inherent in most animators; you have to be fairly comfortable with your own company if you’re to sit and work on any project that requires you to draw, model, move something time and again with only the smallest of differences.

Laura: “Welcome to Glaringly” shows a fairly clear distaste for surveillance, yet you cloak what could have been a straightforward criticism with humour. Is this manner the way you prefer to construct your films or do you believe humour is a more effective way of engaging an audience?

Grant: With “Welcome to Glaringly” I was definitely making something satirical, but it wasn’t an attack on our Big Brother society, which I don’t actually have much of a problem with. It was more aimed at our habit of assuming guilt based on suppositious media reports. At the time of making the film the Pete Townsend and Jonathan King cases were in the press, and whether ultimately they were guilty or not, they were tarred and feathered before any official case was brought against them. There is a definite section of the media that tickle the balls of a story to an exploding point, whether there’s balls there to tickle or not.

Whether using humour to highlight these points is the most effective way of dealing with these subjects, I don’t know. Probably not, but it is a good shorthand way of raising issue with something. Only problem with that is that it’s prone to misinterpretation.

Laura: Could you talk about the difference between making your own shorts and making commercials? How often are you able to introduce your own creative personality into a commercial?

Grant: An advertising agency will get you in because there’s something about your existing work that they like, and they’ll want you to inject that personality into their brief. Ultimately it’s a co-production between me, the agency and the client, and to think of it solely as a personal project, I’ve learnt, is where the pain lies. Collaboration between those parties is where you find you do work that you might never do on your own, and it’s a good thing.
Stepping out of that and indulging yourself in purely personal work is a beautiful thing too, and you do have to re-stock the creative gene-pool now and again with some new ideas.

Laura: Your Love Sport series and “Welcome to Glaringly” both have a similar look to them. Are you going to continue with this computer animation feel? What else do you have planned for your own personal work in the future?

Grant: Yeah, I never meant for those films to have quite that computer ‘retro’ feel to them. With both projects I was looking for the purest, cleanest way of communicating those ideas. I could have used circles instead but I do like a straight edge. I’m a big fan of a straight edge. I’m currently working on a film using water colours, a lot of it is being done on the computer to get to the point when I can start slapping on the paint so it’s a good marriage of the old and the new. It’s being done in between commercial work so I’m thinking either I don’t earn and make the film by next year, or eat and finish it by the time of the London Olympics. Decisions decisions, eh?

On March 27th 1998, Paul Senior woke up, took a picture of himself and went about his life. For nigh a decade this routine continued until Paul had amassed a mountain of mug shots that documented the slow, barely perceptible changes in himself. Bad haircuts, glum days, unfortunate outfits are all recorded here in the short film, “Human Caviar,” written by Paul Senior and directed by Tony Johnson. Now, where did the time go….?

Q & A with Paul Senior

Laura: How would you describe yourself when that annoying question “And what do you do?” pops up?

Paul: An artist, using whatever means possible to express myself. Whether it be drawing, painting, sculpture, installations, performance, writing, film or photography In “Human Caviar,” I am just using photography as a tool. In many ways, I consider this a long term performance project. Lately, I have been doing spontaneous writing and drawing.

Laura: When you began photographing yourself, where did you envision the project going?

Paul: Photographing myself was a conscious effort to create a visual diary: a split second of a moment of my life. It reflects elements of my emotional state. The project is something I imagined would carry on for the rest of my lifetime, with the last photograph being on the day that I die. The work was never meant to be a film. The photographs are a piece of work in their own right. I did think of turning the piece into a animation. When Tony and I collaberated on the film, he wanted a soundtrack and the monologue seemed to fit quite well with the film.

Laura:In many ways the film isolates you, Paul, in almost an experiment-like manner: the mug shots, the bald description of your actions. Do you think the film does distance you from the viewer, or is there a chance for the viewer to connect with you, despite this alienating effect?

Paul: There is an element of isolation, but that’s a feeling we all share at times. The photos were always developed in a normal, High street chemists with no alterations made to any of the prints. Obviously, day-to-day there would be a difference. At times, I was feeling sad, happy, depressed, exited, lonely, content, tired, inspired, and so on. We share these emotions even if you only see a glimpse of someone’s photo. It all shows in the face, eyes and body language. Even the inevitable aging process shows to a certain extent. We are born, age and die.

Laura: How did you decide which photos would linger longer on the screen and which would flicker past instantaneously? Is there any reason why some photos deserve special attention? Did something particular happen on that day that you wanted to preserve?

Paul: It’s actually quite a simple answer. Tony came up with the idea that the photo on the right is the daily photograph. Every seventh photograph would move over to the left - this is the weekly photograph. Then every fourth weekly photograph would move over to the left - the monthly photograph. Then every twelfth of the monthly photographs would move over to the last column on the left - the yearly photography.

Laura: The final lines of the film indicate the emotional baggage dragged along throughout your day as well as the impossible desire to wipe out the past. Why at the last moment did you feel it necessary to let the viewer into your thoughts? Is this a normal reaction to one’s past?

Paul: Of course, everyone’s a product of their past, learning from mistakes and developing as a person. I think the film shows the monotony of day-to-day reality. The work and routines you’re forced to do each day. Taking the photos became a way for me to endure that routine. I didn’t necessarily feel I had to let the viewer into my thoughts; what’s shown is apart of human nature. I hope this ritualistic taking of photos brought out a honesty that cannot be hidden.

It is best viewed under very specific conditions: two floor to ceiling screens project two different scenes, which are in fact part of the same film. This is topped off with a specially designed soundtrack that booms 5.1 surround sound. The two minutes and thirty seconds of “Memory Run” loop continuously, revealing a simple, but intricate plot. After watching the film a few times, one begins to see how the extras and cars in the background all lead up to the film’s ultimate outcome.

THE Q’s & A’s

Laura: How does the typical viewer interact with this unique screening set-up?

Nic: The viewer stands in the middle of the two screens; she flips her attention from one screen to the other. The viewer tries to retain the information she saw on one screen and link it together with the other screen’s action. This tests her short term memory as she pieces together the fragments of the event. The film should be watched a few times, as it loops. This enables the viewer to piece together the events over a longer space of time, and often she notices new things each time.

A film should be viewed and experienced by an audience; therefore, I like to create a unique experience for the viewers where they are active too. I’d hope that it is challenging and exciting too.

Laura: The two screens change, occupying different parts of the girl’s path. What is this representative of?

Nic: I see the girl as the “memory”. I wanted a person, a physical body, to represent the memory as it originates from the actions we do and how we perceive these moments. She’s also an outsider in a very normal, quiet, suburban high street. She is the cause of an event, for a brief moment in time, but that moment leaves a lasting impression (or memory) on the people involved. The running woman’s feelings are ambiguous, making the audience question what is happening in the piece.

Both screens show the same road at the same point in time, but looking in opposite directions. The runner moves through the viewer at the part of the road where you are standing. You get this idea from viewing on a split screen. The piece is intended as an installation, and so should be viewed on two screens for the full effect.

Laura: How did you conceive “Memory Run”? What did you want to communicate?

Nic: The installation was inspired by the emotions one draws from a moment. Those momentary feelings are how you will perceive the situation afterward. This then becomes your memory. The memory could be very different from the reality of the situation. The memory then changes over time, becoming fragmented, but you piece together these fragments to create a whole new memory.

Everyone remembers things differently. Factors, such as collective memory, emotions, noting down the moment in the form of writing or a photograph, all depend on how we remember a situation.

Laura:Why do you think it’s important that the viewer runs with the woman? Is being in her head-space, watching her reactions, listening to her breathing contributing to her ongoing memory?

Nic: The viewer’s participation in this installation is as much part of the piece as the video or sound. I wanted the viewer to feel like she’s apart of the person running. That the memory is hers for a moment. I had to invoke some physical and emotional response from the audience. The sound in the piece is designed to feel like it’s inside your head. The use of the low frequency base, which you can only hear using a 5.1 surround sound set-up, becomes most intense as she appears to run through the audience. This causes a physical sensation; it feels like she is running through you.

Laura: Will you be expanding on “Memory Run” in the future?

Nic: Plans are in place to create part two of the triptych. This will involve a different environment and be based on a collection of memories of people running. Over the next few weeks I will open this up to a wider audience. I am hoping the blog will be useful for this.

A Garganta do Diabo
Dir. Tony Johnson 2007

!!Q & A - ING IT!!

Laura: Could you talk about the extent to which the action in “A Garganta do Diabo” was staged? How does this change the documentary feel of the film?

Tony: The bus load of tourists milling around Iguaçu falls, the waterfalls and the kitsch shopping experience was all unstaged and shot on location. That’s not to say I was just a passive recorder of what I found there. I scripted the film beforehand and then basically clambered around the Falls with a shot list, trying to find those shots that I believed served the story. So, the location shoot became for me a game of manipulating reality to fit the script. I got pretty much everything I needed in two days before my camera equipment broke down due to the intense heat and moisture.

The parts with Marco as our tour guide are completely staged and scripted. We shot this part on a friend’s driveway in the suburbs of Sao Paulo. The story he tells is a combination of different versions of the Iguaçu creation legend that I adapted to fit the intention of the film. Even though the viewer may or may not be aware of his performance being staged, I wanted to leave in clues like the shot of Marco dancing between takes.

What I find interesting is in a work of fiction an audience accepts everything is staged and suspends their disbelief. In documentary an audience is willing to take everything at face value and believe it is somehow objective and represents the truth of a situation, but film by its nature is a manipulative medium and highly subjective depending on who is directing the camera, cutting in the editing room or designing the sound.

I wanted to subtly remind an audience of the artificiality of documentary by doing things such as arriving at Iguaçu falls via the stereoscopic viewmaster, ramping up the colours and replacing in post-production all the original sound apart from Marco’s scripted monologue.

Laura: Why did you choose this tourist attraction, of all the other tourist attractions in the world?

Tony: Iguaçu falls wasn’t necessarily chosen. The situation at Iguaçu falls is not unique and I aimed to present Iguaçu as an example of the ravenous tourist activity that takes place all over the planet. When travelling abroad I always look for a story to tell. I was visiting my partner’s family in Brazil and saw the falls as a opportunity to explore the dichotomy of the place. As a natural wonder it is a spectacularly beautiful place, but the way it has been packaged, marketed and consumed by the tourist industry is incredibly ugly and has had a sad impact on the environment there. Iguaçu falls is clearly a victim of its own beauty.

Laura: Is there any alternative way to explore a tourist destination?

Tony: I’m not sure their are many alternatives anymore. These places have already been bought up, commercialised and lost what once made them unique. Opportunities for true adventure and discovery are rare. I suppose the only hope is to throw away the guide books, strap on your walking boots and get lost.