Wednesday 03 Jun 2009 - 16:39
It's not often that animators find themselves getting into drag to research a project, but Andrew Daffy of London animation studio House of Curves did just that while working on a spot for Europride, a gay pride event.
In the spot, which was commissioned via TBWA, Zurich and produced by Grasshopper Films, a miniature drag queen emerges from a sleeping middle-aged man's belly in a tiny rotating birdcage before dancing across the room's furnishings like a camped-upDisney fairy, replacing mundane bedroom items with more stereotypically 'gay' bits and pieces.
The spot was directed by Richard Hickey, with House of Curves' Andrew Daffy overseeing the animation. Daffy explained the process behind the spot to us.
What was the brief for the project?
The original brief was to have a young gay man burst out of the belly of an older guy sleeping with his wife, as he's gallivanting around the room, he camps things up and items transform from the mundane into the more leopard-print side of life. As he descends back into the belly, the end title reads 'there's a little gay in everyone'
We liked the idea, but worried about the 'young gay man' part. Having to generalize a character in this way in CGI, especially to advertise a gay march, could have led us into awkward territory. We also didn't want the ad to feel like it was excluding the lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities.
We therefore felt a drag queen could represent 'gay' like no other. Unlike a transexual, a tranny is a larger than life character more prone to showing off and exhibiting her glittery goods. Which we thought was ideal for animation. We saw our queen as filling a fairy godmother type role.
We had to make sure that we hit the right tone, in 40 seconds we had to communicate -- as well as the overall concept -- a lot of gags, referencing lots of gay iconography, we had to make sure that the humour didn't come across as offensive but at the same time, not worry about rocking the boat a bit. This -- over any technical issue we encountered -- was the number one concern at the backs of our minds.
What were your inspirations and visual references?
The initial inspiration/reference from Richard Hickey (director) were the works of Pierre et Gilles. The way they could vignette an image without an actual vignette, but using props and depth of field instead. Adam Frisch (DOP) careful lit the sets as pools of light in order to achieve this effect in camera.
Both Richard and I came up with concept sketches for Davina, our character. Mine was a dry, sharp, Lily Savage/Cruella Deville type character -- impeccably, flawlessly in drag, she looked like everything she might say could make you laugh and cry at the same time. Richard's looked like a rugby player in a frock.
These two completely opposing takes on the character allowed for healthy banter about the version we ended up with, which in my opinion had both qualities. Davina's obviously done this before. She has the sculpted wig, decent make up and a killer glare, yet you can see the elements of man shining through also. She stumbles around on her crazy heels, you can see her real hairline and her chest hair is sprouted out at the seams.
Story continues...
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