I have to admit, watching codswallop a second time, I do appreciate the film more. Especially after hearing what Greg and Miles had to say for themselves about it. There is something of a three act structure, though not in the traditional sense with a story -There is no story and once you stop trying to look for one you can see the film for what it is- The mood carries with it the structure, the film darkens towards the middle to represent what would be the conflict/ turning point, then it brightens towards the end and the conflict is resolved. The brothers say that this happened subconsciously and instinctively when the film was in the making.
There are a few characters that are repeated throughout the film in similar but different situations. All the characters come from sketchbook doodles and characters that the brothers liked the look of, the script itself, compiled from odd phrases they liked the sound of, and patched and linked together wherever they best fit, from no storyboard or plan. The result is in many ways random, but if you’re one who appreciates the strange and surreal then this film tops the lot. It was marketed at festivals with the aim of getting themselves known, a different market from what they were used to but so far it has been very successful.
Animation the McLeod way:
The films from the hands of the McLeod brothers have a very distinctive style. The characters themselves have been developed over time to be very recognisable as their own work, their signature work. They most often take the form of monsters or strangely proportioned people, interesting to look at and in any colour of the rainbow. Early on, Greg’s characters were hand drawn, which gives them a quality that can’t be truly replicated with a computer. While he did experiment with more graphic methods, he came back to the hand drawn technique giving the characters the handmade appearance they have today. The line is thin, but uniform. It shakes from frame to frame adding to the ‘handmade’ feel.
They often experiment with many different methods of mark making, sometimes deciding on the look of the animation before the story. They have a wide range of techniques in their show reel from animating with photographs to animating on wooden sticks, this helps when they need to find work and shows to potential clients just how versatile they can be. Greg stressed the importance of experimentation and variety in a show reel not only for marketing yourself as versatile but being a good deal of fun. He also stressed the importance of active characters rather than passive- DOING something, rather than having stuff DONE TO THEM.
In terms of promotion and funding, the brothers gain money from doing commercial work and use it to fund their own projects. They emphasised the ‘feast and famine’ way of life, not knowing when the next opportunity would come along and so making the most of the ones they had. Ad work has strict deadlines and in many cases, inflexible scripts, they relish the opportunity to escape to their own projects where you can have complete creative control with nobody telling you what to do. They started out -and still practice- self promoting themselves; via Youtube, blogs, their own up to date website, entering in competitions and festivals, using viral promotion to their advantage, networking, building up useful contacts. They have a show reel of an ever increasing variety of work, short experiments that show what they are capable of and a clear set of goals to where they want to end up at the end and what with. In their case it’s a comedy cartoon series on BBC 3 and they’re drawing closer all the time to that goal.
Currently they are working on Moon Bird, Greg is ahead with the style tests, lighting tests, colour tests and character designs but without a finalised script or storyboard. It’s not the way that I would work, after all the narrative stuff that’s been drilled into us over the past few projects, but it’s an interesting idea to just let go and experiment without thinking too much about the story… Even small experiments can work to build up a varied and interesting portfolio of work.
Miles on storytelling:
Miles, the writer of the two, has many ways to gain ideas and build up such a stockpile to make writers block impossible. One of these methods is to start off with a random word picked from a book or newspaper and to start ‘automatic writing’ just putting pen to paper for 10 minutes and seeing what you can come up with. The results can be pretty random but they can build up a sort of ‘written sketchbook’ of words and phrases to gain ideas from. He also picks out funny stories from a variety of sources, newspapers, spam emails, random conversations… Constantly keeping a notebook on him to collect ideas and random phrases that come to him from everywhere.
In terms of characters, both brothers say that exaggeration is important in scriptwriting. Play with stereotypes and adapt them. Push a character to its limits, have the worst thing happen to them that could happen, this means there is more of a struggle and a sense of jeopardy that hooks the audience in and holds their attention. It’s important to give characters flaws, which in turn gives them depth.
When talking about refining scripts, Miles had many tips and hints:
- You have to like your script enough to stick with it, read scripts out loud to get a sense of timing and what’s relevant and what’s not.
- Avoid ‘too on the nose’ dialogue, don’t have a character say ‘I love you’ have him say it with gestures, awkward silences, hidden glances and the desperate need to say anything, even the mundane, to have the pleasure of simply talking to his love.
- Have a change of state in each scene to keep things interesting.
- When there is comedy, end on a gag and pause for long enough for the audience to get it and laugh.
- Use visual comedy wherever possible and dialogue can be ‘the icing on the cake’.
- When talking about Ad work, Miles emphasised the importance of condensing information into only what’s essential; the key points, boiling it down to what’s relevant.
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