Dear John – An Interview with Péter Vácz & Joseph Wallace

Following on from his stunning animated video for ‘All I’m Saying’, award winning director Péter Vácz has crafted another stop motion film for British rock band James’ latest single ‘Dear John’. With the artistic input of Joseph Wallace, Milán Kopasz and Attila Bertóti, Péter evolved his style further to include some linear 2D animation alongside the emotive and richly textured stop motion characters and sets. Péter specifically chose the song from the bands current and critically acclaimed studio album titled ‘Girl at the end of the world’ which is out now worldwide. We spoke to both Péter & Joseph about making the video…

Hello, can you introduce yourself to our readers?

We are Péter Vácz from Hungary and Joseph Wallace from the UK and we’re animation directors. You may know our graduation films; Péter’s ‘Rabbit & Deer’ and Joseph’s ‘The Man Who Was Afraid of Falling’. We met whilst studying on the course Animation Sans Frontières (ASF) and later co-founded the avant-garde film group Caravel Collective in France where we worked for a period. We have also toured around France and Spain with our live music and animation show and both teach and lecture animation practice and theory.

Can you tell us about your latest project ‘Dear John’?

Dear John is the official music video for the British rock band James from their new album ‘Girl at the End of the World’. The video was developed over four weeks and made during another four weeks in Budapest, Hungary. The piece follows a girl and a boy who journey up a mountain to watch the sunrise but are distracted by a black cat who leads them deep into a forest where they discover dark secrets. The animation features a combination of textural stop motion and scratchy drawn animation.

How did the project come about?

Péter: I’d already made the video to the James track ‘All I’m Saying’ in 2014 from their previous album. The job came through Picasso Pictures and the band liked the video and later approached me to make ‘Dear John’. Joseph came on board to work on the video with me as it was a more ambitious production than ‘All I’m Saying’.

How did the idea for the music video arise?

Péter: I talked a bit on Skype with Tim Booth, the lead singer of James, about the meaning of the song and he shared some events and images from his life that he thought could be interesting. I started to collect different ideas and visuals and I found a drawing that I made of myself with my arm turning into a tree. That drawing gave the main idea for the story then everything else built around it.

Joseph: Péter had created many interesting drawings and neon-infused concept art and I came in and drew all the characters and images together into a story and structure which we then refined together. We didn’t want to interpret the video literally but rather make a film which responded to those lyrics but which took place in a mystical, symbolic, fairytale world and would read as a story in itself.

Can you tell us a bit about the process of pulling the video together?

Joseph: Péter and I Skyped back and forth regularly from Budapest and London as we developed ideas. Then I went out to Budapest and we were both joined by Milán Kopasz who built all of the detailed and textured sets and Attila Bertóti who worked on Péter’s drawn animations and created visual effects. We had two pairs of the boy and girl puppets so that Péter and I could both animate with them at the same time on two stages. We were constantly refining the story and cutting and tweaking to make the piece as rich and atmospheric as it could be and we edited to the music as we went along to make sure the imagery was working with the music.

What was the most challenging aspect of making Dear John?

Péter: Squeezing this ambitious story into four minutes in the short period of five weeks.

Joseph: With projects of this nature you are often working to a tight deadline so there’s a balance to be made between artistic ambition and time restraints. We were really keen to have a cinematic feel to the film to emphasise and play against the roughness of the sets and puppets. We worked 12 hour days around the clock to achieve the quality we were striving for.

Is there anything you would change about the video?

Péter: It would’ve been interesting to use the track as inspiration and turn the video into a longer and more epic film. We came up with a story that could do with more time to express all the emotional and psychological details and the changes that the couple go through.

Where do you come up with your best creative ideas?

Péter: It’s hard to tell. If I work on a project I just keep collecting ideas and thinking wherever I am. I keep playing possible scenes, acting in my head before falling asleep or when I’m swimming.

Joseph: In general I tend to have ideas in-between consciousness when I’m falling asleep or waking up. So I have to keep a notebook by my bed. During the process of making Dear John, if we were feeling stuck with something or we needed to find a new angle, we would walk around the block near the river and get out of the dark studio to try and refresh our minds and find solutions to the narrative. We’d also plan elements on our lunch break and would often edit and storyboard in a different room where there were less distractions.

How did you get into animation?

Péter: I studied graphic design in secondary school which I continued at university (MOME) where I tried a puppet animation course. That brought me into the magical imaginary world of animation.

Joseph: I saw early shorts by Aardman when I was three years old and decided then that I wanted to make animated films. So now, alongside working as a theatre director, film curator and occasional lecturer, I direct animation and I’m currently working on a new stop motion short due for release in 2017.

What advice would you pass on to those seeking to get into the industry?

Péter: Start (and keep) making animations in whatever technique. Do it with passion.

Joseph: The technology to make films is more readily available and inexpensive than ever and the internet is an incredible platform for getting work out there. I would say go to festivals, be interested, talk to people about their work. The wider your knowledge of the medium, the more you’ll have to talk about. Read lots of books, not just animation, watch lots of films, not just animation, and make as many films as you can to learn by doing.

Which animated film, if any, do you wish you could have made?

Péter: The Lion King – Roger Allers, The Nightmare Before Christmas – Henry Selick, Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson, Ratatouille – Brad Bird and Jamie Caliri’s puppet parts from the most recent Little Prince…

Joseph: Rakvickarna – Jan Švankmajer, Bellville Rendez-vous – Sylvain Chomet, Street of Crocodiles – The Quay Brothers, La Ruka – Jiří Trnka, The Rifle’s Spiral (Shins music video) – Jamie Caliri.