Fresh Cut Grass Released – An Interview with Rob Cullen
When a wide eyed young puppy leaves his idyllic homestead and sets off to the big city to see his big sister whom he idolises, nasty surprises await him as he journeys head first into filth and depravity he could never have imagined. Finally released online, Fresh Cut Grass is the short film directed by Rob Cullen, creative director of Boulder Media. Skwigly readers may be familiar with the work of Cullen as we have profiled his work as the director of the new series of Danger Mouse with the BBC.
The tale of the young pup is a nice twist on the comic formula which takes the viewer on a journey of discover as the pre school pooch’s eyes are opened to the filthy world he becomes uncontrollably embroiled in.
The short has been a festival favourite throughout the world winning prizes at Galway Film Fleadh, The UK Film Festival, The Delhi Film Festival, Noida film fest and Dublin Animation Film Festival where it picked up the audience choice award. The film has also screened at Berlin Independent film fest LA Shorts and the Manchester Animation Festival.
To launch the film Rob Cullen talked to Skwigly about the production of the film and provided us with some behind the scenes details on his passion process which was ten years in the making.
The tale is an entertaining take on the loss of innocence with a funny, sometimes harrowing and definitely thoughtful agenda, as writer and director, how did the idea for the film come together?
My aim was to make a short film that had a very simple storyline but packed an emotional punch. One of my favourite movies is The Elephant Man, which breaks my heart every time I see it. It’s the idea of seeing someone you love and admire being belittled and not having any fight left in them that gets me every time. At the risk of sounding arty, there’s scene in The Bycle Thieves where a young boy looks on as his father is being ganged up on by a crowd, accusing him of theft. The dad is powerless and just takes this abuse, which is all the more upsetting as it’s seen through the eyes of his young son. Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas is also an obvious source of inspiration. The final meeting between Harry Dean Stanton’s character and his on-screen wife Nastassja Kinksi is incredibly moving. If I have managed to achieve even a fraction of that emotional punch, I’m happy with that.
As you say, there are comedic moments in there which felt like a natural way to get the audience to warm our little doggie, but hopefully they also serve to lull the audience into a false sense of security.
As a virtually silent film, and with a foot in each camp, and as the storyboard artist, do you place emphasis on the written or visual process during the initial stages of production?
I wrote the initial script for the short about 10 years ago, so it has been knocking about in my head for quite a while. By the time we decided to make it, I had visualised in my mind, shot for shot, how it should look and play out. As you say there’s hardly any dialogue in it, so the boarding and animatic stages were the most important parts.
The biggest problem was to get my boarding skills to match what was in my head. I’m by no means an accomplished board artist, so it took a lot of trial and error to come up with something that I was happy with. I was also lucky enough to work with an amazing composer, fellow Irishman Denis Clohessy. I couldn’t have wished for a better score. Denis’ music brought a huge degree of warmth and emotion to film.
Boulder is a busy studio, how did you manage to fit in working for so many varied clients and making an ambitious short like this into your time?
You can get a lot done on the train into work! Like I mentioned, I came up with he idea about 10 years ago. We submitted it for funding a couple of times, without any luck. When I draw or write something that, initially I think is OK, if I come back to it a couple of months later, my reaction is usually ‘Good God! What was I thinking!?’ However I couldn’t shake off this idea, so I thought, sod it let’s fund it ourselves. At the time we were halfway through Season 1 of Randy Cunningham for Disney XD, and I knew that there would be a couple of months of down-time between the end of season 1 and start of season 2. That gave me about 6 months-worth of lunch breaks and train journeys to use. I thumb-nailed out the entire short on my commutes into work, along with developing the character designs. My aim was to have all the pre-production done in those 6 months, so that the team could jump straight into production on day one of the down-time. This lead-in time meant I could also work with our wonderful BG and Comp leads to develop the style of the BGs, and figure out how we would light the shots.
The film demonstrates a fantastic use of light, above just adding shadows like most films tend to do, which is an underused commodity in 2D animation. You seem to embrace that fully in shows you create for clients such as Danger Mouse, how did you develop this look?
I think it’s evolved over the years. We learn something new on each show we work on, and try to carry that learning forward each time, refining our approach and style. It also helps that we have an amazing compositing team who bring their own artistry to every scene.
One of things we wanted to do in the short, and also for Danger Mouse, was to light characters in a way that made them feel part of that scene, rather than a flat 2D character on a painted backdrop. Individual scenes and characters are lit differently depending on the light source, time of day and distance from camera. Combining this approach with ambient lighting, realistically cast shadows and depth of field, we hope to achieve a look that’s distinctive.
Fresh Cut Grass was the ideal opportunity for us to showcase these techniques. It was also one of the last pieces we would produce in Flash; it’s kind of like our swan-song to Flash!
As Boulder flourishes as a service studio does creating original IP in short form like Fresh Cut Grass open any avenues for yourself or the studio that may not have been open before?
Obviously to get our own IP funded and broadcast is the goal. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have worked on amazing shows over the years as a service studio, and are very proud to have been part of these. Fresh Cut Grass was a passion project, so I never really looked at it as a ‘creative calling card’. However if someone wants to make a TV series based on animal strippers, give me call!
I do feel the studio has made a huge step forward in the last couple of years. Danger Mouse has been the most fulfilling project I’ve ever worked on. Boulder is involved at every stage of production and we’ve been given a huge amount of creative freedom. We’re also co-producing the new CBeebies show Go Jetters on which I’m the Supervising Director. The show is being made with our Dublin-based partner, Giant Animation Studios, who are directing the show. This is our very first full CG project, and we couldn’t be prouder of the results.
We are developing a number of our own projects, and are looking forward to bringing them to market early next year. I guess it’s a case of watch this space!
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