Memoir of a Snail is an Australian stop-motion animated film featuring the voice-acting of Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Eric Bana, and Jacki Weaver. The following interview is with Adam Elliot, the director and writer of Memoir of a Snail, who detailed their experience creating the film, particularly using the medium of stop-motion animation. Memoir of a Snail is now showing in theaters.
What was your inspiration for creating Memoir of a Snail?
Memoir of a Snail was inspired by several things - firstly, when my father passed away, he left behind a lot of things - three sheds full of stuff, and we had to sort through it all and work out what to keep and what to throw away and I became, sort of interested in why people collect things and the psychology behind particularly extreme hoarding…but also at the same time, I came across some notes about a friend of mine, who was born with a cleft palate and as a child had a lot of operations on her mouth and was bullied and teased a bit at school, yet grew up to be this very confident, extroverted person, and I was fascinated by how she transformed herself over that time. And so these, sort-of, two vague ideas came together, and three years later and 16 drafts of the script, we came up with Memoir of a Snail.
Memoir of a Snail deals with mature subject matters such as grief, sexuality, violence, and alcoholism, whereas animation is commonly associated with films aimed at children or families. What attracted you to tell a story like this in this particular medium?
Firstly, I don't see animation as a genre; I see it as a medium and a vehicle to tell any sort of story you'd like - and certainly, animation is not just for children. Especially in countries like the Czech Republic and Estonia, [they have] a long history of adult animation, and there's more and more adult animation being created. So I've always seen, you know, challenging subject matter as, not a problem. When it comes to animation - for me it's about getting a balance between the comedy, the tragedy, the humor, and the pathos, and I love that quote, 'without the dark, the light has no meaning'.
You have gained recognition for your other stop-motion animated films. What aspect of stop-motion animation interests you, and why do you prefer this medium to something like CGI, hand-drawn animation, or live-action?
Very simple answer to that question. I like stop-motion animation because I'm just not one of those people who can sit behind a computer screen all day. My artists and I like to use our hands. We love playing with clay. We love, you know, glue and paint and making a mess - and it's the very tangible, tactile aspects of stop motion that I love.
Tell us about the various materials and elements used in the stop-motion animation for Memoir of a Snail. What props or elements in Memoir of a Snail needed extra special attention?
In Memoir, there are over 200 characters and 200 sets, and we guess there are between 5000 and 7000 props. Everything was handmade using four basic ingredients - paper, clay, wire, and paint. So, we kept the materials very minimal, and we really celebrated the brush strokes, the fingerprints in the clay… I suppose the things that were most complicated were actually the puppets cause they had to have very complicated armatures inside them. Many of the lead characters had to have trays of replacement plasticine mouths so they could speak…their eyeballs were magnetic, and their pupils were a little, tiny magnet. They had silicon arms and very complex interior armatures within the arms. So, I would say the puppets were probably the trickiest things to make.
What was your favorite element or scene to animate in this film? What was the most challenging?
I'd say the very, very first shot in the film was probably the most ambitious. It took about a month. It took about two weeks to set up and two weeks to shoot. It was one of the last shots we shot… and we needed one of our cinematographer's very complex and expensive motion control robots that had a very specialized small snorkel lens on the end. We did many, many tests, many experiments. We really wanted that very first shot to be impressive and overwhelming and remind the audience that this is, indeed, a true stop-motion film with no CGI.
What was the voice-casting process like? Tell us about your approach to collaborating with the film's voice actors. What was the process like of getting these performances?
Well, just like any other film, we present the actor's agents with the script and a letter explaining what the project's about. This can then take time for the actor to read and get back to us, but we had a wish list of all the actors we wanted, and we got pretty much all of them. So, Sarah Snook was always our top choice for Grace. Similarly, Jacki Weaver, Kodi Smit-McPhee, but also, I wanted a very eclectic and broad cast. So, we also got people like Tony Armstrong and Dominic Pinon - all because of their certain unique qualities and differences.
What advice would you give people interested in entering the field of stop-motion animation?
If you want to become a stop motion animator, the first thing I always say is don't get obsessed with the stop motion. Get obsessed with the storytelling and the scriptwriting. It's all about a good story well told, and I would put as much, if not more, effort into the script than the animation.
Which films/directors have influenced you as a filmmaker and the film, Memoir of a Snail?
I don't have one director or film that's inspired me. I do like watching documentaries. I certainly love animation that's for adults, and animation from countries like the Czech Republic. Jan Švankmajer is one of my favorite animators from the Czech Republic. I also love to read, I'm also inspired by performers such as Barry Humphries. I also like the cartoonist and philosopher Michael Leunig.
Which themes and subject matter interest you as a filmmaker?
Again, I like films that have a duality, comedies and tragedies. I love films that feel very authentic, and the characters feel very believable and real, even if they are just actors performing. You know, I'm not really into fantasy or horror. I really love, you know, character-driven stories and films.
What's next for you?
I'm currently writing my next screenplay for another feature film. It's very early days. It's got a long way to go, but yeah. And hopefully won't take 15 years, it'll only hopefully take 5.
Watch Memoir of a Snail — now showing in theaters