WAnimate Talks: Suzie Campbell

Kate’s take on…..Suzie Campbell…… advice for making it as a film maker animator.

The Projection Lounge 2005

Suzie is an experienced Television Producer of Children’s programming including animation. She worked at the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF) on projects such as Little Elvis. She was also the Producer of the award winning Anthony Lucas film The Geographical Adventures of Jasper Morello. She loves animation and she is a producer because she can’t draw (know the feeling.)
Suzie knows animators and what they are like (!!??) and she had a couple of points of advice she really wanted to hit home with.
She told two stories, one about an animator from a commercial background who got an AFC grant for a drama. He spent two years on it going broke and it went nowhere. Why? Because it didn’t find it’s audience. The voice over told what the pictures showed – it didn’t add anything and the promo didn’t make it obvious what the film was about. The lesson being that you must have a good business reason for doing something and a good creative reason.

Susie threw in some ‘figures’ for thought. The ABC only pays $1,500/episode for Bob the Builder.
High Five costs about $45,000/half hour.
Ie they need a good reason to spend hundreds of thousands per episode of an animation.

Suzie emphasised that you must work things out on paper before going anywhere (ie animating!) Just need to illustrate character, don’t lock anything down because broadcasters like to interfere.

The other story Suzie told was Anthony’s story. Anthony was a student when he made his first film. He then set up with a couple of others doing Ads in claymation. He had a good product that people liked but nobody wanted to pay for it and he didn’t have a reputation. He realised the market was in Children’s animation so he put aside the dark & depressing subject matter. He put some short films into international festivals and that led to an international commission and he got an international profile and a BAFTA. Then he switched away from stop mo (too expensive and time consuming) and got out of Children’s because it wasn’t him. He made a short film, got into Cannes and THEN the Oz funding agencies wanted to help. Then he could make a half hour film (Jasper) which could get an Oscar nomination.

The lesson being that if you want to use festivals to get a career you must make a very watchable film.

So what I think Suzie was saying was….If you want to make a career as an film making animator

YOU HAVE TO MAKE FILMS FOR AN AUDIENCE (NOT JUST YOURSELF) AND FOR AN AUDIENCE WHERE THERE IS A MARKET.

START SMALL AND WORK YOUR WAY INTO THE SYSTEM

and not forgetting that bit of advice that animators don’t want to hear. Work it out on paper don’t jump straight into the computer or modeling!