What is the film about?

“No, I Don’t Want to Dance” it’s a collection of quirky vignettes in which unfortunate characters go through bad times, but it may seem like they are dancing…

It’s a stop motion animated short film which aims to raise awareness of how deadly dangerous dance can be.

What influenced it?

So many really! Well, I love the episodic structure of storytelling, probably since I saw “Short Cuts” from Altman several years ago. So that’s something I wanted to explore. Wes Anderson‘s animated films are surely a big influence on the general direction, but also the scenic composition of Peter Greenaway. The work of Anna Mantzaris and Marc & Emma on a technical level. Quentin Dupieux is an influence on the way he uses electronic music to convey emotions and quirky visuals. Todd Solondz is probably my favorite director so he definitely had an influence on the dark humor tone of all of my work.

A little background information...

Even if the majority of the body of my works are in live action I tend to do extremely stylized pieces and focus strongly on the art direction. I experimented in past basic 2D animation and I also did a live action puppet music video which was really fun to make and had a quite good response. I always wanted to explore stop motion because I felt it embrace my strongest skills. Also, I particularly enjoy the freedom and control it gives you in terms of design, everything has to be made from scratches and this allows you to curate every single detail that goes in shot, which is fantastic!

How was the film made?

This film it’s the result of seven intense weeks in which with a small team of really talented people we created hundreds of props, built seven sets, and animated almost thirty characters, each one with his own costume and feature. The intent was to approach the animation conveying a sense of warmth and homemade feeling, as much as possible without the help of CGI. So for instance, elements like the fire and the water have been designed to reflect the traditional stop motion animation’s way which I believe has an immortal charm.
The plan was also to focus on a colourful, graphic and playful design in order to create a contrast with the dark events happening in the film. This juxtaposition also drove the choice of materials for the puppets and the sets. I wanted the characters to feel soft and awkwardly funny and also the world around them being pop, smooth, stylised and colourful.