Q&A with Cliona Noonan (‘Wet & Soppy’)
Industry up-and-comer Cliona Noonan‘s first professional film Wet & Soppy, produced as part of Animation Skillnet‘s Animation Studio Lab programme, was recently released online in full, quickly earning itself a Vimeo Staff Pick. On the heels of her graduation film Tuna, which did the rounds at events including ITFS Stuttgart, BFI Future Film Festival and the Manchester Animation Festival, Wet & Soppy tells the simple but strikingly-rendered tale of a man whose attempts to air-dry his laundry are constantly thwarted by suspicious rainfall. Skwigly spoke with Cliona for the film’s recent participation in Cardiff Animation Nights‘ monthly online lockdown screenings to learn about the director’s work and process.
Can you tell us about your background and early interest in animation?
I’m from Dublin in Ireland, and I graduated a year ago now from a four year course in animation at the National Film School. I was always interested in animation, I saw the documentary The Pixar Story and thought I want to do that. I made a graduation film, Tuna, and since then I’ve made another film, Wet & Soppy.
How did that come about? Is it an independent film or was it commissioned?
There’s a funding scheme in Ireland called Animation Skillnet that had started this program called Animation Studio Lab from the year before, where they invite up-and-coming directors to lead a team, as training for recent graduates. So they had links with studio professionals. And there was an open call for each area specialist, storyboarding, animation, backgrounds and comp. I was approached by (producer) Stephen Fagan who had seen my previous film at a festival. He just said “Do you want to make a film? We’ll have enough people help you.” So I was like, “Of course!”.
We had eight weeks of production to actually make it, with about three or four weeks before that to come up with an idea. It was a really good experience.
Was Tuna also made with a team or was that a new experience?
For Tuna I worked on every part of the process myself and I had one animator Cian Hughes also helping me full-time, so the animation was split between the two of us. There were a few other helpers along the way too for a bit of animation or colouring. But yeah, very different experiences, for Wet & Soppy there were 13 people. So it was definitely more of a directing role.
Were you able to muck in on some of the animation for Wet & Soppy?
Yeah, I animated a shot or two, and then before we started I did the character designs and was touching everything throughout, like key posing and colour scripts. So it was a bit of both.
Something that struck me in particular about the film was the design work, I’d be interested in hearing about some of your influences and processes when it comes to that.
For this I needed to be clear on what I wanted, because I knew I only had a certain amount of time. From the beginning I was looking at illustration rather than animation, how each shot could almost be a moving still; I really like it when things hit a pose and stay there. I had gotten a book on the Chicago Imagists, who were an amazing 1960s group of artists. I was looking at 60s illustrations, Seymour Chwast and Yellow Submarine, as the inspirations for that.
Designs for Wet & Soppy
Going back to the animation side of things, can you talk a bit about what having a full team at your disposal brought to the table?
Each step of the process overlapped with the next. There were four animators and me, we were using TV Paint for everything, that’s what I usually exclusively use. We had them for about five weeks, so I did all the keys first. It was set up in a way where I had very clear key poses because it was so illustrated. The shots were divided evenly, which was the same with all the other areas; each person was taking a chunk of the story to storyboard or a section of backgrounds or comp to complete. We had a studio space and equipment as part of the scheme. So it was great, we were all actually in the building together, just working back and forth between ourselves.
Having made two films in relatively quick succession, are they both doing the rounds at festivals? Or has that kind of slowed down because of the current situation?
I keep thinking Tuna is at the end when I’ll get an email from another festival. It was recently at La Guarimba in Italy. Wet & Soppy has just started with its festival premiere in Ireland, so that’s just at the beginning. You finish one, start the other.
Wet & Soppy concept sketches
You mentioned before that your favorite – or first choice – software was TV Paint. Are there any particular advantages to that setup?
I guess it feels closest to drawing on paper, because everything I do always starts with thumbnails or sketchbook work. In college we learned flash as well but I guess I’m just more drawn to the hand drawn process than the rigged process.
Is there anything you’re working on at the moment or you have coming up?
I just finished directing a music video for a friend, which was mainly by myself and I had one other animator helping for a bit. I was working on that for probably a year, kind of on the side of everything that was happening. That was really great because I was given the music to start with, so it’s like almost a flip side of filmmaking. It’s due to be coming out at the end of September.
See more of Cliona Noonan’s work at clionanoonan.com