The First Murder – Director Interview

The First Murder by Blue Zoo

At the beginning of the week Blue Zoo released their latest short film “The First Murder”. The London based animation studio allows anyone in the company to pitch in ideas to direct a short, Then the whole studio (100+) gets to vote on which idea goes into production (the very next day!) and this is the result! The short is directed by Tree-Fu Tom animators Phil Brooks & Alec Smith and voiced by the one and only Adam Buxton. We spoke to the directors about the film

Can you give us a brief introduction into what the film is about?
At a point in time, the act of murder was invented and carried out for the first time. The culprit; a small bacterium named Colin who didn’t share the same enthusiasm for the beginning of life as others.

How did the idea for the film come about?
A while back I had read an article about the first gun to be produced from a 3D printer, this lead to the thought that at some point in time, no ‘thing’ had ever been killed before and the act of murder had to of been carried out for the first time. This evolved into a story about a bacterium named Colin who existed at the very beginnings of life, who accidentally invented murder because his only company was far too irritating and upbeat. This was then pitched as part of Blue-zoo’s shorts program and was luckily selected to go into production.

Can you tell us a bit about the process of making the film?
Visually the style went through a lot of visual development with the one prevailing concept of making it feel like this was being watched through a microscope. After that it was trying to replicate the feel of old photographs of microorganisms which had a lot of texture and grain in them.

We had imagined Adam Buxton voicing all the characters from the start, so getting him on board was amazing. If anything he was a little bit too amazing and one of the worst things we’ve had to do was cut it down to duration. At one point there was a 7 minute edit full of great material that seemed impossible to reduce.

What’s been the most challenging aspect?
Technical challenges aside, one of the hardest parts of the project was keeping the dialogue and pacing in check; making it feel hectic and over crowded but also easy to hear and follow. We wanted it to feel ‘too much’ at points which is what leads Colin to murder one of the characters, without it having that effect on the audience. Animation wise we had a lot going on, simulations and dynamics making the cells collide and deform with one another alongside hand keyed animation.

Have you always want to work in animation?
No, we fell into it through a mixture of wanting to go into film and art. Animation happened to join those elements together and lets you explore design through film, which is something we both find appealing.

Where do you find is the best place to come up with ideas?
If anyone knew where that was they’d never leave. Ideas come and go as they please and mostly surface in the weirdest of ways. I do find the more you restrict something the easier it is to come up with an idea, that phrase of thinking outside the box has never struck a chord with me, I prefer to stay inside it.

What projects will you be working on next?
Currently we are finishing up a pilot for a new children’s show we’ve created in partner with Blue-Zoo. It’s called ‘Planets: The Greatest Show in the Universe’ and it’s going to Cartoon Forum later this month.