Julia Pott has a virtual cup of tea with Kino London
The animator extraordinaire responsible for this week’s Film of the Week My First Crush is Julia Pott. Here Julia has a virtual cup of tea and a biscuit with Kino London, tells us more about the making of the film and why animation floats her boat.
Kino London: When did you do your first drawing and what was it?
Julia Pott: I’ve been drawing since I can remember. My mom was very encouraging and whenever I’d have a nightmare she would make me draw it to help me deal with it. We also wrote a story together at bedtime about a scuba diving spy and in the morning I would make the drawings to go along with it. I really want to find that one day, it would make the most ace animation!
KL: Why animation?
JP: My tutor at Kingston, Martina, told me that you are an animator if a drawing isn’t finished until it’s moving. That’s exactly how I feel about it, an illustration is just a jumping off point for an animation for me.
KL: Where did the idea for the film come from and how long did it take to make?
JP: It was my graduation film from my BA at Kingston. It took about 5 months to make from conception to completion. The reason I made it is mildly embarrassing, I had a bit of a crush on this guy at school and I was pretty intrigued by the whole idea of infatuation, not being able to get someone out of your head, this all consuming feeling. I interviewed people at first about it just to get their stories for reference but ended up using them in the final animation.
KL: How did you choose an animal for each voice?
JP: I interviewed about 50 people so I chose the stories that were the most inspiring to me, ones where I could immediately see the character and their setting. I tended to choose an animal which added comedic value to the stories, ie. the shark being a coward, it may seem cliche but it adds a nice touch to the story I think.
KL: The film is about people’s first encounters with love and your latest film, Howard, looks at the breakdown of a relationship. Why love?
JP: I have always been very interested in human relationships, especially romantic ones. I’ve consistently been in long term relationships since I was about 15 so it’s a big part of my life. I use my films as a kind of therapy to deal with what I’m going through.
KL: Where do you draw inspiration for your films from?
JP: In terms of subject matter I draw a lot from what’s going on in my life, problems I’m dealing with or just something I want to know more about. I read a lot of short stories as I love looking at the structure of them for short film, and their ability to get across such a range of emotions in such a short space. For visual style I love looking at Priit Parn and Igor Kovalyov, i’m getting more and more influenced by classic cartoons too such as Max Fleischer, Chuck Jones etc.
KL: Your favourite film?
JP: Brief Encounter, I think mainly for the scene on the train with her inner monologue that starts with ‘this can’t last…’ it gets me every time, I could watch it on loop forever!
KL: And finally, kiss chase or stuck-in-the mud? Smarties or M&Ms?
JP: I have bad memories of kiss chase because as a kid no one would chase me! So stuck in the mud!! And M and M’s every time.
Click here to see more of Julia’s work.
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