Looking Beyond “The Bigger Picture”
The Bigger Picture is the NFTS graduation film of Daisy Jacobs and like most of her fellow graduates in the school’s history it is no stranger to success. The innovative short has scooped awards both nationally and internationally. The film is notable for a compelling story and eye-catching animation style that work in tandem to deliver a sensitive tale of sibling rivalry. The film has been nominated for both a BAFTA and an Oscar holding the distinction as the only UK animated film in the running for an Oscar this year.
Rather than letting the grass grow under their feet, the filmmakers behind The Bigger Picture have decided to start work on a new film immediately. Daisy Jacobs and her film making partner Chris Wilder have turned to Kickstarter to fund the latest project in an effort to retain creative control and to fund the expense of hiring a large studio space their technique of animation requires.
We spoke to Chris Wilder about kickstarting the next step in their success story.
Tell us about yourself and the team behind the project?
Most of the team have just graduated from the National Film and Television School, which is where our last film The Bigger Picture was made. We (Daisy and Chris) are both graduates from Central Saint Martins where we studied Illustration for 3 years before spending a year trying to make those illustrations move. The films we make are directed, written and designed by Daisy who then animates all of the wall painting whilst I puppet the paper mache elements. I also build all of the props we need out of paper mache; I can often be found sat on the floor surrounded by replica kettles, looking a bit lost.
Chris Wilder working on The Bigger Picture
Since making The Bigger Picture we have been experimenting with how the technique can be pushed further and developed in a way that will be both visually exciting but will also allow us to tell a more engaging story. We’ve taken the sections of The Bigger Picture that we enjoyed creating and are going to explore those a larger scale both in terms of size and complexity.
With the success of The Bigger Picture one may believe a filmmaking team such as yours would have no worries finding funding for a follow up. Why have you decided to use crowd funding instead of more traditional routes? Were they even considered?
We knew we wanted to continue working in a short film format but we also knew that we wanted full creative control over the project and needed to tell a story we were interested in telling. Our process is expensive, incredibly time consuming and requires a huge amount of space so we decided that trying to find the money ourselves was the best way forward.
Daisy Jacobs
We were also delighted with how many people really responded to The Bigger Picture and were interested in how those who were invested in the work could help continue the process, with the result being more work that they could enjoy.
Have you encountered anything surprising that you hadn’t planned on when you thought of using crowdfunding?
I don’t think we anticipated how much fun making the video would be; we put a lot of pressure on ourselves during The Bigger Picture as we wanted the standard to be as high as possible. But with the Kickstarter video it was nice to simply enjoy the animating process, getting back to building and painting things and It turns out animating spinning watermelons can be very therapeutic, we were almost calm.
You can find out more about the project and become a backer by visiting the Kickstarter campaign page here