Last updated at 16:14, Tuesday, 03 July 2012

LAKES filmmaker Russell Peet has had his short film, Up and Over, accepted at film festivals worldwide. He tells CLAIRE CRISP about his hopes for the film and the future

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IN the great tradition of artists worldwide 21-year-old filmmaker Russell Peet is certainly prepared to suffer for his art.

He says: “When I was a teenager I had to saw my bed in half to make room for a studio, so I haven’t had a bed of my own for five years!”

On hearing this anecdote, you might be forgiven for thinking that Russell’s passion for film was a lifelong, all-consuming one – yet it wasn’t until he was 15 that he ‘discovered’ stop frame animation.

He explains: “I always had an interest in building things and telling stories but it was only later that I linked the two together with animation.

“I started doing small puppet shows when I was very young and when I was 15 I got a video camera because I wanted to film them.”

He soon realised he did not want hands or puppet strings and wires to be visible in the short films he was creating and so he bought 20 kilos of Plasticine and a book called Cracking Animation by the Aardman team and taught himself how to make models for stop frame animation (the kind used to create Wallace and Gromit or Postman Pat).

Completely self-taught, once he discovered his passion for animation, he was thirsty to get as much experience in the field as possible. He says: “When I was 16, I found out the guy who owns Aardman, Peter Lord, was doing a talk in Bristol and so I got the train down.

“I stayed late to speak to him and so I missed the last train home and had to sleep on the station that night.”

Peter Lord was so impressed by the teenager’s enthusiasm that he invited him to the Aardman studios that same week to do a month’s work experience.

“I worked on Wallace and Gromit’s A Matter of Loaf and Death and also on some episodes of Shaun the Sheep,” says Russell, adding, “To have the experience of working on a film with an £8m budget was brilliant – to see how it all worked. It definitely inspired me to up my own game.”

Since then, that is precisely what the Satterthwaite filmmaker has done.

He worked tirelessly in his bedroom studio perfecting the art of model making – funding his work, and his subsequent short film, by running workshops at local schools and clubs, as well as at Barrow’s Signal Films.

He says, simply: “I had a vision so I just kept practising.

“On my 16th birthday I went to Cosgrove Hall and saw Bob the Builder and Postman Pat being made – it was a magical place and confirmed for me that ‘this is what I want to be doing’.”

Eventually he secured a studio in Burlington House in Barrow and set about creating his own short film Up and Over.

He explains how it came about: “Two years ago the animation industry was in quite dire straits. Everyone was turning to computers, so there was no work for stop frame animators so I thought it best to get my own project commissioned.

“I was commissioned by the UK Film Council to make a short film. However, the budget was fantastically small, just £2,500, and I have had to double or treble that myself.

“Each puppet alone costs around £1,000 to make, that is without the expense of cameras, lighting, sets etc.”

Despite the sacrifices he has made, he says: “Making the film was a brilliant learning experience and it showcases a range of skills – showing I can direct, write and make models.”

The film, which is just over five minutes long, is a tale of heartache and romance, balanced by a subtle note of humour. It tells the story of Ethel, a flower seller, abandoned by her husband and left to push her cart to market alone.

Ethel’s chance encounter with Frank, a clumsy old gent who rides a mobility scooter, causes chaos – but ultimately leads to love for the pair – as Frank helps Ethel ‘Up and Over’ her difficulties in life.

The film has already been shown at a number of film festivals around the world (following its premier at the London Independent Film Festival in April) including festivals in California and Scotland. Next up Russell is taking it to Kosovo this month where it will compete against films from large studios at the Shqip Film Festival (his film was one of just 32 short films chosen from 1,500 entries).

He hopes this is just the start for his film over the coming year. He explains: “I am hoping to get into 50 plus film festivals and fingers crossed I will win something.”

But he adds: “This short will go up alongside films from much larger studios so the competition is stiff.”

He says Up and Over was supposed to take around six months to make but due to a series of minor disasters (“the camera broke, my computer blew up”) it took him just over two years. “It was very much a learning experience for me,” he says.

The process of making each model, alone, is painstaking and can take up to six months as he does everything from soldering together their intricately hinged metal skeletons, to moulding their silicon bodies and even making their tiny clothes.

“I create the sets too, build the scaffolding and I do the lighting and sound.”

While the technical side of producing his films is undoubtedly key, he does not neglect the power of a good story: “Quite a lot of animated films are technology rather than narrative driven but for me the story is all important – I always want a story that’s interesting and will entertain people.”

Not one to sit on his laurels, as well as promoting his short film and planning a short trip to Tuscany to start writing his first feature film, Russell is also developing an idea for an animated children’s TV series, Donk and Honk, about a straw-hat wearing donkey and his yodelling pal, a goose, who take a road trip across America.

He is hoping he may get the project off the ground this year: “I pitched the idea to the Cartoon Network recently and they were quite interested and encouraged me to seek co-producers from Canada or Ireland – but now the new tax breaks in England mean I might be able to do it here.”

As for his current film, Up and Over, if you are keen to see a trailer/clip, you can go to our website nwemail.co.uk.

To see the film in its entirety, you may have to wait a little longer: “I won the Roxy Film Club’s Robin Hutt Award in 2009 and the film will be screened there at some stage this year and will hopefully be on TV next year.”

First published at 14:01, Friday, 22 June 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk