Interview with ‘Moominvalley’ Production Designer Sarah Hauldren
This week saw the announcement of an upcoming third season for Gutsy Animations’ highly-popular and multi-award winning series Moominvalley. Based on the classic Moomin stories by Finnish-Swedish author and artist Tove Jansson, the new season will be helmed by a collective of returning directors including Sara Barbas, Nigel Davies, Darren Robbie and Jay Grace as well as featuring several new additions to its high-profile cast, including Chance Perdomo as Snorkmaiden’s brother Snork and Jack Rowan in the role of Moomintroll.
Ahead of the new episodes scheduled to air in 2021-2022, Skwigly contributor Martyn Warren spoke with Moominvalley Production Designer Sarah Hauldren to learn more about the process of making the show and its journey so far.
Before you worked as the Production Designer for Moominvalley, you were an Art Director on major period films like Evita, Elizabeth and Gosford Park. What did you take away from your role on these productions and use for your work within animation?
All three of the films you mention were nominated for an Oscar for Best Production Design and, on reflection, I think the common thread that links them all together is a rigorous attention to detail and a passion to use the interior and exterior environments to reflect and underscore the characters and the stories that were being told.
Evita was shot in England, Argentina and Hungary and a long time before the internet! I learnt the value and importance of clear communication. It was also an honour to work with the production designer, Brian Morris, and to observe the way that he collaborated with Alan Parker, the films director. The confidence and trust they had in each other was reflected in their excellent professional relationship.
Elizabeth taught me that sometimes you can challenge what would be historically or environmentally accurate in order to enhance and underscore a characters personality or a situation that they may find themselves in. John Myhre, the production designer, created environments that were sometimes historically inaccurate, but which added to the vitality and suspense of Shekhar Kapur’s drama.
Gosford Park was the most fun of all. Written by Julian Fellowes, it was the forerunner to Downton Abbey. We built a huge, labyrinthine composite set at Shepperton Studios that allowed the camera to roam freely as it followed the below stairs characters. The attention to detail in the architecture and the set dressing helped to create a series of spaces that allowed the actors to stay in character the whole time – which was really important, as Robert Altman often used two cameras filming simultaneously, so every cast member had to stay completely in character the whole time. The art department were so talented and lovely to work with, I strive to replicate that experience where possible.
So, to summarize, what I bring with me from the world of live action to the world of animation, is an attention to detail, good communication, trust in your team, the willingness to challenge ideas and a respect for the whole creative process.
How did you get involved with working for Aardman and what challenges did you face with working on animated productions compared to live action?
I first worked for Aardman on Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the WereRabbit. I knew a relative of the production manager, who heard that I had recently moved from London to Bristol; I was a very experienced art director and I lived close to the studios. They took a chance on me as I had never worked in animation before. However, the process of design is very similar between stop frame and live action – the main difference between the two formats is that in animation you have to design the exteriors as well as the interiors, and that is what I found to be the biggest challenge.
In live action you are able to take full advantage of the most beautiful outdoor locations – long and winding empty roads, woods, mountains, beaches, fields, clifftops, the list is endless. On Were-Rabbit, as with Moominvalley, creating landscapes that convey the beauty of all the occurs in nature in a simplified and manageable way, was the biggest challenge.
What Aardman taught me about set dressing exterior gardens and woodlands, was not to take things at face value. So, instead of trying to find miniature plants that worked with the scale of the puppets, we had a wonderful greens department, lead by assistant art director Bridget Phelan, who found seed heads and artificial flowers that, when painted and dressed into a location worked as a wonderful substitute for bushes and a varied tree canopy.
It also took me a long time to get used to what a slow process animation is! Up until that point, the longest project that I had worked on was Evita, which took 9 months. In live action you film, on average, between 3-5 minutes of footage a day. The dedication and commitment of the animators who move the characters one frame at a time was astounding!
And how did you get involved with Gutsy Animations and begin to work on this new series of Moominvalley?
Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit was co-directed by Nick Park and Steve Box. Steve and I worked together on numerous sequences in that film (primarily those involving Lady Tottington and Tottington Hall).
We kept in touch and when Steve became the series director for Moominvalley, he invited me to interview for the role of Production Designer on the show. The first set that I worked on was Moomintroll’s bedroom, followed by Snufkin’s camp and tent. Both of those sets had the approval of Steve and Gutsy Animations CEO and Creative Director, Marika Makaroff. The production schedule was punishingly tight and so all I could do was to work hard and try to create as many beautiful environments as possible in the time available.
What inspiration did you take from Tove Jansson’s illustrations towards your designs for this production?
Tove Jansson’s work is key to everything we create for Moominvalley – I try at all times to refer back to the original source material – her books, the comic strips and also her paintings. They are wonderfully colourful and I have used colour combinations from those artworks as inspiration for many of the colours within the Moomin house.
Tove’s artwork is exceptional, but in many of the book illustrations she uses a sparseness of line that we have had to build upon in order to create a fully fleshed out, three dimensional world for the characters to live in.
All new location designs have to be approved by both Marika and Moomin Characters Creative Director, Sophia Jansson. Her thoughts and comments are really useful as she knows all the original work so well.
And with the Moomin books and Moominvalley originating from Finland, were there any Finnish artists or animators that inspired you on any aspects of your designs?
Three wonderful Finnish painters have provided me with inspiration for the Moominvalley landscapes: Eero Järnefelt, Pekka Halonen and Akseli GallenKallela.
The delicate water colour interiors of Swedish painter Carl Larsson and his book Ett Hem (A Home) provided many details that I used inside the Moomin house and the poetic and subdued interior paintings of Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi, were key in helping to establish the ‘painterly feel’ that we have worked towards for the visual look of the whole series.
There have been many adaptations of the Moomins from feature films to television series in other animated formats. Did you watch the previous productions and if so, what did you want to try and use from those?
I’ve never seen any of the other Moomin productions. I read the books to my son when he was young, and that was my only knowledge of Tove Jansson’s work.
When I first started on this project, I watched some clips from other series on YouTube. But I quickly realised that the look we hoped to create for our show was visually very different. The other films and series were just another designers interpretation of the source material and I’d rather not be distracted by what someone else has done before me.
I felt a huge weight of responsibility towards the fans who love the Moomins – their powerful loyalty and emotional response to the previous work was something that I tried to be respectful of, but not distracted by, when creating a new world for the Moomins to inhabit.
With the size of the characters and the environments, how important is the scaling on a production like this?
That’s a really interesting question. The Moomins are not human sized, but equally, we are not making a show like The Borrowers or The Secret World of Arrietty, where the scale of the characters is portrayed against a human sized world.
I have tried to create interior environments that work alongside the characters – one where they look as if they fit in their surroundings. However, when we move the camera outside, when the characters are seen within the natural world, the plants have a slightly oversized feel against the scale of the characters.
What new challenges did you face between season one and season two?
Season two followed on directly from season one – there wasn’t a break between them. Twenty six episodes of Moominvalley equate to just over 9 hours of animation, which we made in roughly three years, a massive feat and huge achievement for all the departments – especially as we have strived for feature film quality throughout.
Although I had previously worked on The Tale of Despereaux, Moominvalley has been the first large 3D CGI animated project that I have worked on. The biggest challenge throughout both seasons has been learning about what can and can’t be achieved working with this format.
I had to undergo a huge (and rapid) learning curve during season 1 and so the challenge with season 2, was to take what hadn’t worked so well (for example fabric curtains, 3D objects interacting with structural volumes in a jarring way when the painterly filter is applied) and, with the help of the animation company Anima Vitae, striving to improve what we could and to think of practical ways around other problems. At the same time, it was very important to recognise what had worked well (for example, beautiful textures and finishes) and endeavouring to make them even better.
In season two there’s a group of episodes referred to as ‘The Island Trilogy’ – what was it like to design the sets for these specific episodes?
This has been my favourite part of Moominvalley so far. Anima Vitae’s modelling of all the interior and exterior environments and the level of detail in the textures and rendering was phenomenal. We had created enough assets by this point to be able to set dress an interior effectively and we had reached an understanding about the ‘painterly filter’ and how to successfully apply it to exterior elements – which has lead to the creation of our most effective, cohesive and beautiful environments.
Because the design schedule was so far ahead of the story team by this point, it also meant that Anima Vitae were able to build proxy models of all locations and supply us with cube maps of those sets, which made it much easier for the story boarders to accurately draw where the characters were within their new environments, which in turn helped the layout team.
Are there any designs that you wanted to use but were either cut or not chosen for this particular season?
No, I don’t think there are. As I explained in an earlier question, our schedule has been punishing. I only have time to work on sets that are required for the approved scripts. However – there is still plenty more original Tove material that hasn’t yet been adapted for our series. Moominpappa’s Memoirs springs to mind – I’d love to design the orphanage where Moominpappa was found on the doorstep, the Oshun Oxtra and Daddy Jones garden – they would all be wonderful to recreate.
Moominvalley concept art (©Moomin Characters™/©Gutsy Animations 2020)
Across both seasons, what was your favourite episode to work on and why?
My favourite episode is Moominmamma’s Mural, set on Moominpappa’s Island – we were comfortably into the second season by this point and I had developed a good working relationship with Anima Vitae.
At the time of writing my answers to your questions, I am working from home, still in isolation, and so I find the theme of that story in particular even more poignant than I did when working on it. The Moomin family are alone on the island, Moominpappa is frustrated and angry with life and Moominmamma is lonely and misses her friends and her ‘normal’ life back in Moominvalley. With the help of a beautiful mural that she paints on the wall of the lighthouse where they live, she is able to magically travel back to Moominvalley.
I loved designing the mural and seeing how beautifully my ideas were translated digitally into three dimensions; I started with the rose that Tove drew as one of the illustrations to Moominpappa At Sea, and from there I studied the murals that she painted for the kindergarten in Kotka, Finland, as well as those for Helsinki City Hall. If you are really observant, you will notice many of the plants, trees and flowers from those artworks have been incorporated into Moominmamma’s painting.
My design sketches were translated into the most beautiful piece of concept art by Finnish illustrator Valtteri Heinonen. He and I have worked together since the first episode of Moominvalley and our harmonious working relationship is something that I am most proud of – he takes my sketches and turns them into art.
Now that season two has been released, what are you working on now or what are you hoping to work on next?
I am currently designing season 3 of Moominvalley. I had hoped this season would be easier, but we went into lockdown just as pre-production started in earnest. Our new working environment has presented a whole host of challenges and made good communication between colleagues even more important.
As to what I’ll do next – who knows? I am living week by week and I’m grateful to be safe and able to loose myself in a beautiful world that is Corona free.
The third series of Moominvalley will air on Sky One, streaming service NOW TV, the Sky Kids app and on demand in the UK and Ireland in 2021/2022.