Animator Teresa Drilling talks about her Aard-uous work on Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
As one of only two American animators enlisted to help bring Wallace & Gromit to life on the big screen, Teresa Drilling has a unique perspective on working with celebrated toon studio Aardman Animations, maker of the Oscar-winning clay-animated Wallace & Gromit shorts, festival favorite Creature Comforts and the DreamWorks feature film Chicken Run. When last we spoke with Drilling she had just completed character animation on New Line’s Elf with the Chiodo Bros., and she promised to give us the lowdown on her Gromit gig when she got back from Blighty. Here’s what she had to say:
Animation Magazine Online: How did you get involved with the Wallace & Gromit movie?
Teresa Drillng: I was one of the animators on Chicken Run [Aardman’s and DreamWorks’ 2000 clay-animated feature]. I was an additional key animator who came in during the last part of production and they really liked my work. When it came time to start staffing up for Curse of the Were-Rabbit, they gave me a call and here we are. I came on three months from the beginning of production, so I was there from pretty much the middle of January 2004 until within a week of the end of production in June 2005. Because I’m not an EU or British citizen, they had to bring all their other key animators on first and get them up and running before they could legally bring me over to start up. The other American animator was Jerold Howard and he came in for the last three weeks.
Did you work on any specific characters or did you just kind of bounce around?
This was a little different from Chicken Run in several ways. There was a litte bit more moving around form me and some of the other animators. So I did get to move around on several different sequences but I worked mostly with Gromit, Wallace and Philip, the villain’s dog. And I also worked a lot with Mrs. Mulch, who has a very funny run at one point, so they put me on that.
Can you tell us about some other scenes you worked on?
I worked on the scene, which is in the trailers, where we see them come to their first job and they leap over the fence and into the Mulchs’ garden to nab a pest. There’s a lot of work I did in a scene toward the end of the movie that takes place on the ledge of Tottington Hall, and also on the grounds of Tottington Hall. And I can’t tell you much more than that without giving too much away.
Which scenes were the most fun to work on?
They all had their own challenges and rewards. I think, for me, one of the most satisfying experiences was getting the chance to get Gromit. Gromit is a really subtle character and he’s very simple, but that doesn’t make it easy. It makes it more difficult sometimes. With Gromit, it’s all in the posture and where he’s looking, and he, more than any of the others, is a thinking character and you have to get an idea of what he’s thinking about before he takes action. So that’s a very subtle performance with a lot of nuance in it and he’s really, really tricky. So to finally get a sense of that and finally channel Gromit was really satisfying for me?
I saw some of the animation puppets on display at DreamWorks and was star-struck just looking at them. I can’t imagine sitting down and thinking, "Gee, I actually get to animate these guys!" What was that like?
I was a little bit star-struck, too. You know, when you’re in the business that I’m in and you see something come out, you can’t help but look at it and analyze it kind of dissect it to figure out what it was they did technically and so forth. But I always resisted doing that with Wallace & Gromit because they’re just perfect. Especially The Wrong Trousers, that’s the perfect animated movie, and I wanted to keep that sense of wonder and awe. So when I finally got to Aardman and started working with them, that’s the point where I really had to start breaking them down. To sit down in front of them for the first time was a little daunting. It was like, "Oh my God! This is Wallace and Gromit! I’m not sure I’m worthy," that sort of thing. So it was a real challenge to get my head around that but it was really satisfying when I finally did get it.
What was the overall experience of working with Aardman like?
It’s a very different style, very different vocabulary and very different sort of conceptual phrasing for what is done by the animators there than what a lot of stop-motion animators in America do.
So they have their own shorthand, their own language in essence?
Yeah. It is definitely a different language. It’s like the difference between French and German. You’d think that there would be some words in common and it’d be like "Yeah, yeah, we’ll figure this out." But then you come across a real different sort of phrase and you’re like, "Whoa, wait a minute!" Also, in general, their focus is on the personality of the character and the motion in them, where a lot of American work is focused a bit more on the action, the finesse and the spectacular way something can be pulled off in a movement. But there’s definitely some crossover on those. I’m just making some really gross generalizations. And that’s what’s so good about it. I’ve been working in stop-motion for over 20 years and to be able to go someplace where they have a very complete culture, a really high-quality, world-class culture, and find myself in new waters after 20 years is just a wonderful gift.
Is it a well-oiled machine there, or was there chaos like any other production?
I think with any creative endeavor you have to allow some room for chaos because that’s where the spark comes in. You can’t preconceive every single bit of it or it’ll come in on time and on budget but it could perhaps lose a bit of that life and spark that only comes about as you’re in the middle of it. So there’s always room for chaos and suddenly turning on a dime and going in another direction very quickly. Given that, it was also a very well-oiled machine. There were protocols in place for having enough of a framework that doesn’t stifle the creative process but allows you to move as quickly as you have to in changing directions. When you’re under the direction of someone so capable and so talented as Nick Park, you can have total trust in his calls, even if he asks for something and you don’t see how it could possibly work. You know enough about his work, his thoughtfulness and the way he can hold so many things in his mind at one time in a way that’s astounding when you realize what he’s doing. They’ve learned a lot from Chicken Run and have been consistently working up to larger and larger productions. So they really do know how it needs to work and what lines of communication need to be followed through on the floor. It’s really nice because you can concentrate on the work itself rather than doing the running around and all that.
You say you’ve been in stop-motion for 20 years, how much of that was working with clay?
The very first little stop-motion piece I did in school was a clay piece, so I guess you could say from the beginning. Then I was an animator and ultimately a director on the commercial side at Vinton Studios for about 14 years. I became one of the senior creatives by the time I left and pretty much developed a lot of the style, not consciously, but just in the process of working while the whole thing was evolving. I was behind the concept of Cecil the Ball on Sesame Street, along with Barry Bruce, who was the supervisor on that. I came in just as Vinton was doing the California Raisins spots and worked on the different television specials they did, and actually won an Emmy in 1991 for my work on one of those.
Since stop-motion features are relatively rare, there seems to be some pressure on Corpse Bride and Wallace & Gromit to do well at the box office so that producers don’t say, "We’re not doing that anymore."
I don’t see how they can’t do well. Chicken Run far exceeded expectations and that was a warm-up. Not to take anything away from that movie at all, but it was a warm-up for everybody–for the relationship between DreamWorks and Aardman, for taking a film from a 30-minute format to an 80-minute format and getting the proper number of crew members on board.
When you’re spending that amount of time on something, you want it to be as good as can because that’s pretty much what you chose to do with that part of your finite life. And I think there’s a bit of an awareness that you need to do it as well as you can so that it remains viable and people still think it’s interesting and magical and want to see more of it.
People will surely want to see more of Wallace & Gromit after they see Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which opens nationwide today, Oct. 7. Read our cover story on the film in the October issue of Animation Magazine and check out some personal impressions of this latest feature outing for Aardman and DreamWorks Animation at www.animationmagazine.net/editorial.php.
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