Animate! Chris Ullens on "The Beauty of the Imperfections"
Chris is an established London-based Belgian director working predominantly with stop motion animation and is known for his bold, creative and playful world building and character which has earned him multiple awards around the globe, including several Vimeo Staff Picks.
He has directed commercials for the likes of Coca Cola, Acne Studios, Gucci, BBC, Cadbury’s Creme Egg, KFC, 3 Mobile, Kirin Beer, the Guardian, Innocent Smoothies and Kellogg’s amongst others, and music videos for artists including Fergie, London Grammar and Poppy.
Since developing his animation craft during his masters degree at Central St Martins, Chris continues to experiment with his multi-disciplinary skills today in order to continue to create fresh, weird and exciting work.
Chris is currently writing and developing original concepts for series and TV-based projects with a suite of ideas in classic Chris Ullens style.
LBB> How did you fall in love with animation?
Chris> My ’Eureka’ moment, as in the moment I fell for it, was during my MA in photography in Central Saint-Martins. Chris Cairns (amazing director, great human and now a dear friend of mine) presented his work including the LCD Soundsystem ‘Daft Punk is playing at my House’ music video he’d recently made and that was it. I couldn’t believe someone could make a living having so much fun.
I wanted to make animation, dove into it hard and never looked back. Three weeks later I was animating on one of Chris Cairns' jobs and during the second year of my MA I was already working animating stop-motion jobs half the time.
LBB> Tell us about the animation project that kick started your career?
Chris> I would say it’s my music video for Slugabed’s track SEX. I had made a few commercials before that but that’s the first project where I went 100% all out creatively, made it all myself and it got great reception in festivals across the globe which made me feel, "I can do this”.
LBB> How would you describe your art style and what are your biggest inspirations that developed it?
Chris> I think my style isn’t an art style that can be visually classified, it’s more of a sense of playfulness that’s in all my films. It’s to do I think with my love for music, rhythm and flow on the one side, as in the images need to have a flow. And on the other side it’s simply that I want things to be fun and entertaining to watch. And if the project isn’t too serious, I'll always try and be a little cheeky or humorous.
Inspirations for that are so varied: it’s the anime I used to watch as a kid, it’s the video games I played growing up and seeing the evolution of the animation and the level of fun and entertainment they could bring, it’s the music videos I saw on repeat in my teens with directors like Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze coming up with visually super entertaining videos all the time, it’s the MTV logo idents that were great in the '90s, it’s skateboarding and snowboarding videos I watched growing up that were very DIY back in the days and had a bit of a fuck you attitude about them but always with a sense of humour.
This list could go on a long time.
LBB> From your perspective, what’s the key to animation that really lives?
Chris> The beauty of the imperfections. It’s all man made and thus full of beautiful little imperfections and that’s what gives it all its charm and character. And in a time like ours where AI is so talked about I think that aspect of stop-motion is even more put forward as a great quality. Everything on screen is real, man made.
LBB> Show us your favourite or most impactful project that you’ve worked on - tell us, what is it that makes it special and what were the memorable moments or challenges?
Chris> Whenever I’m asked my favourite of anything I always say I can’t. It’s impossible to have one favourite, you like different things for different reasons, that’s what makes life great… variety and difference. Therefore here are three:
So, I love my Lee Ann Womack film for having used a really playful technique on that one
We shot all the backdrops with a mixture of live-action and timelapse in California, then brought all that back to a UK studio to shoot miniature characters and sets in front of these backdrops. Jamie Durand (the DOP on that job) smashed it as he was mimicking the lighting of the backgrounds on the miniature foreground, so when it was a driving sequence and the sun was obscured for a few frames due to the shadow of a building or so, we had to kill the sunlight on our miniature set too.
We’ve made two making of films if you were interested in finding out more about it:
I love my Rex Orange County music video because it’s fun, warm and it feels like a cuddle:
And finally I love my Two Fingers video for it’s fuck you attitude and because it won me a prize in a horror film festival, a genre I’ve always been a fan of:
LBB> How do you approach character design? What is your creative process like?
Chris> I very often imagine and create my characters during the pitching process. I then do lots of visual references research and take those to a character maker. It’s such a special skill to make good stop-motion animatable characters and some people really mastered it so I love working with these people and use their talents.
One of my favourite characters from my films are the robots from my Poppy music video.
The influence for them came from anime and manga and I then went to see Adeena Grubb, a wonderful character maker and all round talented person, showing her the references but to add to the challenge I also told her that the robots needed to come in all these different parts as one of my favourite scenes from the film was the robots coming together in the factory.
She then translated all that info into these wonderful robots.
LBB> Tell us more about observation and movement - what is the process you go through to study movement of characters?
Chris> I feel like it always comes from within. You need to visualise that movement in your head, know what the intention of the movement is… understand it completely, decompose it to the single frame but then equally you need to understand the flow of it.
I often try and recreate these movements myself, with my body as I feel that helps me understand the movement better. Even if it’s a mechanical movement, I’ll try and mimic it with my hands, arms or body. I will also record myself moving sometimes to then mimic that move, would it be a walk-cycle, a dance, a page turning on it’s own or a sofa bed magically deploying itself on its own. You do some bizarre stuff for animation but that’s what’s great.
LBB> How does one figure out what kind of animation style or styles fits a particular story or project?
Chris> It all depends on what the film’s for. If it’s a music video, then what sort of track is it and what do you want to express with the animation. If it’s an advert then what sort of product are you promoting and so on. Depending on what the video needs express you make choices to go for a certain style or another, slicker and more refined or more DIY and very hands on.
LBB> What is your favourite piece of technology or software that you use and how does it help your creative process?
It’s the program that allows you to capture your pictures on your computer. And for me, having started to animate before such a program existed I bless it each time I animate. Plus, it’s definitely made by people that understand what tools an animator wants to have and they keep on making the program evolve in better ways. Highly recommend it!
LBB> What sort of briefs or projects do you find more personally satisfying to work on?
Chris> I do love music videos as music has so many facets, so different tracks will demand you write different films with different sensitivity. They allow you to write your ideas very freely in a way that I consider them more like short films and depending on the tracks you can push things pretty far with it.
But then, when an agency comes to you with a brilliantly written script and think that your work is what they need, you feel like the stars align. You then need to prove yourself but you have the means to go big, employ a crew of friends you love to work with and all together make that brilliantly written script a reality. That’s a wonderful feeling.
LBB> What recent projects have really stood out for you and why?
It’s for a good cause so that’s a good start but it’s visually striking, it mixes some great techniques in animation, the edit and the music are great. I think it’s a beautiful film that is very effective at delivering the message it needed to.
LBB> Who is your animation hero and what is it about their work that inspires you? What example of their work particularly stands out?
Chris> As you know, I don’t like choosing one hero, but if I had to pick one I’d have to say Michel Gondry. It’s all the in camera sorcery that he’s so clever at using that I love. Here are three examples:
LBB> Outside of the field of animation, what really inspires you?
Chris> All the other fields of the arts. Music is definitely a big one as it moves you in so many different emotions so I think it nourishes the creative mind hugely. But then seeing films and series or reading, there’s sculpture, painting, photography, architecture and the list goes on… it’s all inspiring.
Oh, and then nature of course. All the different elements, different landscapes, the weather, the change of seasons, getting old… It’s all things that I take in for sure.
LBB> What are the biggest changes to animation and challenges facing animators at the moment and what are your thoughts on them?
Chris> Well, an obvious one would be the rise of AI these days and seeing how fast it’s developing. It’s certainly a game-changer and it’s quite incredible what it can bring in terms of help when used as a tool. But then I also saw friends losing pitches to AI and so on. It’s sometimes vertiginous to think about that.
I have friends not in the industry sending me messages about it asking: “Are you scared?”. I don’t think so. It’s a great new medium and definitely a game changer but, at the end with AI and computers evolving, you’ll probably be able to sit in front of your computer and tell it to come up with something to your specs for you, you know, like: ‘tonight I want a thriller with three heroes, two girls one boy, it starts when they’re young in a school and ends in Hong Kong when they 45, and so on…”.
It’ll be fascinating but I think there’s always going to be an interest in wanting to see someone else’s thoughts. A curiousness for another mind presenting certain specific stories in a carefully selected light and through a particular lens.
LBB> Any advice you would like to give to aspiring artists?
Chris> Yup. If you got that feeling like, “Damn, that’s definitely what I want to do”, do it and look out for some signs that confirm you indeed got something for it. And then just go for it and don’t think too much. Head down and run! There’s no shortcuts, it’s hard work, sometimes tough and you never feel like you got to where you wanted to be as there’s always a new goal but then that’s life right?
You just keep pushing and keep on going, makes you stronger and all that… And most of all enjoy the ride, there’s really lots of wonderful moments in it that make it all worth it! Like when you press play for the first time just after animating something. Still the biggest thrill for me, brings me so much joy. Animation’s magical!
