Interview with ‘Imbued Life’ directors Thomas Johnson Volda and Ivana Bošnjak Volda
In a secret room, performing a secret procedure, is a woman who breathes new life into dead creatures. Not satisfied with simply recreating the beautiful beasts into a static tableau of life and returning them to their natural habitats, she discovers that she is able unravel rolls of undeveloped film from their minds, bringing her even closer to the nature she so deeply wishes to be part of.
Imbued Life, from directorial duo Thomas Johnson and Ivana Bošnjak Volda, is a truly beautiful piece peppered with surrealist, hyperreal and uncanny moments that come together to create a profound and memorable snapshot of nature and the connection some feel to it. Having both studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Thomas Johnson and Ivana Bošnjak Volda are highly talented animators and directors whose previous work includes the celebrated short film Simulacra in 2014 as well as working on Eva Cvijanović’s Hedgehog’s Home in 2017.
With Imbued Life making waves over the past year at such prestigious film and animation events as Clermont-Ferrand, Annecy, ITFS Stuttgart, Animafest Zagreb, LIAF, Ciné court Roanne, Animanima, Tricky Women/Tricky Realities among many others, Skwigly were keen to learn more about the pair’s process and the film’s origins.
Could you start by telling me a little about how each of you came to work in animation?
We both met at a small university animation festival in Volda, Norway back in 2010. This was where Ivana was completing her degree in animation. On the last days of the festival in Volda we recognised a heartfelt connection and spent our remaining time together sharing ideas. After the festival we were invited to work on a new stop-motion film for Bonobostudio in Zagreb, Croatia. From then onwards we have lived together working on various stop-motion projects including creating our own animation films.
You previously made another short film called Simulacra together, and have worked on multiple projects together, what have the benefits of this creative partnership been?
Animation, especially stop-motion can be a very time consuming vocation. In a practical sense working together has allowed our creative process to be more productive. Perhaps a more significant asset of having this creative unison has enabled us to collaborate upon film concepts developing the structure and our artistic aesthetics. It is greatly beneficial to have a kindred spirit to discuss and cultivate a film with throughout its production.
Mood and atmosphere are key elements in your work, the film’s sets and lighting approaches are just beautiful – can you tell me what influences you had for the art direction?
Thank you, for us the atmosphere is an important facet of our films. It would be hard to pin-point specific influences for the art direction; there are so many subconscious stimuli that undoubtedly make their ways into our aesthetics. We have a fantastic director of photography Ivan Slipčević who made incredible work with the lighting.
Imbued Life (Dir. Thomas Johnson and Ivana Bošnjak)
Stop-motion and taxidermy are somewhat similar in their reposing of static creatures into dynamic poses to mimic life. What drew you to both the art of taxidermy and combining it with the art of stop motion for this film?
Taxidermy is a fascinating discipline and conceptually there are many parallels between it and stop-motion puppet animation. Philosophically the connotations of preserving and resurrecting life though the taxidermy process speak of an uncanny surrealism which is so similar to aspects of stop motion. We were inspired to create this film after having a taxidermy animal sitting on our shelf in our apartment in Zagreb. The pine marten was preserved in a moment; a still life staring down at us, as if it were expressing a part of its self but we were unable to communicate a response. With this film we sought to explore the art of taxidermy and our relationship with nature further.
The film uses a very interesting visual device incorporating film reels into the brains of the creatures, where did this idea come from?
The film primarily focuses upon our protagonist’s relationship with nature and the idea of the photography film strips originating from the brains of the animals allowed us to further illustrate her connection with the animals. The films and their respective developed and seemingly abstract imagery allowed us to present this introspective reflection upon the beauty of the consciousness or life force of nature. Taxidermy is often just seen as a macabre discipline. There is a visceral gore accompanying the practical act of preparing the dead flesh of an animal which we wanted to significantly contrast with the memory, beauty of nature.
Imbued Life (Dir. Thomas Johnson and Ivana Bošnjak)
Could you explain the process behind some of the water scenes, specifically the scene in which she is rowing the animals out and the striking image of the half-animal people floating reflected in the river?
Water is often avoided in stop-motion films because it is notoriously difficult to achieve in a realistic manner. We wanted to avoid the use of CGI effects on the water and so for those scenes we constructed a model lake which we animated the boat and girl upon. The rig for the boat was submerged beneath in the cold water and required us to kneel close the lake edge and dunk our hands into the seemingly freezing water to move the boat a millimetre or two forward for each frame. It was difficult at we had several set-backs during the lake scenes but ultimately we are really happy to have shot the animation puppets on real water and believe that physicality is visible in the film.
What approach did you have to the construction of the puppets and what was the overall aim?
Our aim was to create as realistic puppets as we were able to, and this is a goal which we are still striving to improve upon. For the puppet skin we used silicone rubber which has an incredible translucency and stretches well. There is two scales in the film for close-ups we made animation models half life-sized because we were unable to achieve a desired detail on the conventional puppet scale. We used artificial fur for all of the animals.
Imbued Life (Dir. Thomas Johnson and Ivana Bošnjak)
The film has an uncanny, surreal, dreamlike quality by combining the stop-motion puppets with the more experimental film stock animation, creating quite an avant-garde film. Could tell me a little about your approach to creating and the way in which you layer up these various visual motifs in the film?
Finding the balance between these elements was critical to the rhythm of the film. We created the animation on the seemingly abstract images by spraying bleach onto printed photographs but it was important for us that this aesthetic felt incorporated into the rest of the animation so we dissolved it into the image of the physical puppet space by taking still frames from the ends of the scenes and using the same ‘in camera’ bleach technique to dissolve them. It is this dissolution of the layers of reality which appealed to us and further enunciates the concept of the film.
How have you found the audience and festival response to the film?
We are delighted with the film’s reception. The film premiered at Oberhausen Film Festival back in May 2019 which was a great honour for us, this festival particularly pays attention to artistic creativity and the film selection was to an incredibly high standard. Since then the film has been selected for more than 70 festivals and has received several awards. We are very proud and so very thankful for everyone who helped us make the film.
What’s next for both the film and yourselves?
The film will be screened at a few more festivals, some of which because of the current situation will be online editions. We are beginning to create a new stop motion film which will be our third co-directed short and is centered upon the theme of apathy. We are planning to finish the new film by spring 2022.
Imbued Life is available to buy and rent via Vimeo On Demand.