Teeth by Holbrooks films is finally online – Interview

04 March 2016 // Interviews

Steve Henderson

Editor

Holbrooks films have released their film teeth online. The directorial duo consisting of Daniel Gray and Tom Brown are probably formally best known for their graduation film t.o.m which gathered critical acclaim when it was released in 2006, winning at Annecy and the British Animation Awards amongst other festivals. That success has returned with their latest film teeth which has been met with equal enthusiasm picking up again at Annecy and getting special recognition at SXSW.

teeth tells the tale of a loner sharing his life story focusing on his obsession with his pearly whites. The narrator leads the viewer through a squirm-filled chronicle of his journey from birth through to old age towards a dramatic and unexpected climax of his own making. With a macabre voice-over by Richard E. Grant and frequent instances of dentine panging animation woven into it’s runtime, the film relishes every moment of control it has over the audience as they willingly wince through the engaging story and superb visuals which are presented masterfully.

With the film finally online we caught up with New York based Tom Brown and Budapest based Daniel Grey to talk about teeth and there pair shared some behind the scenes images and clips with us.

Tom you’re based in New York, Dan you’re based in Budapest and yet you still manage to make short films together – how does that work?

Tom Brown and Daniel Gray

Dan Gray – It just works! A lot of internet, a lot of dropbox, a lot of google drive and a lot of time, rage sweat.

Tom Brown – We like to spin it that we have a 24 hour workforce, because at 2am when I go to sleep, Dan is awake and working, then whenever I happen to wake up, Dan is STILL working (they laugh)

When you created t.o.m what were you aiming to create?

Dan – A really good film! We had been to Annecy a few times and we had this romantic notion that we could somehow make a film that would be good enough to get in so we could experience that, so from a very basic point of view we were trying to get into Annecy. I suppose from a creative point of view we were trying to make the best graduation film ever!

It’s a fair ambition, was there a particular formula you had in mind when creating t.o.m that catered for a festival?

Tom – I don’t think it was a formula that we followed, we just realised it had to be a good film.

Dan – Yeah, you had to work really hard on it and make sure there are no flaws in it. I think we both have a good eye for an idea and a sense of tone so we just teasted that out on the world.

It obviously worked as you got back together to make teeth, it’s a similar story, an odd character with odd ambitions, do you have an affection for wierdos?

Dan – Originally there were two people in teeth, when we focus the story to make it as effective as possible that mechanism of a single person is an effective way of doing 6-10 minutes for an audience. Even though they’re similar in the fact that its single person, the emotions we are playing with are different, and the way we wish to manipulate the audience is different too.

Tom – Yeah I think we enjoyed the trope we used in t.o.m where we created a visual aesthetic that was quite appealing and used that as a Trojan horse to get in the werid narrative to win over the audience before they realise whats happened they’re in the weird world of the protagonist.

Dan – Yeah we tell them a truth and they believe that truth

The film is beautifully illustrated who was responsible for that?

Tom – The madness was my doing! It’s building on a style we started with t.o.m. When we first did that it was our first foray into completely digital art so in this project we used Photoshop again and really built up the layers of shadow and highlight to what was maybe… excessive! Which is mainly why it took too long

Dan – Seven Years of frustration!

How many years?!

Tom – Seven, well eight when it was finished.

Dan – We learnt a lot from those eight years.

Wow, and this is from a company open 24/7!

Dan – We’ve got to earn a living too! (laughs)

Tom – We wanted this to be an expression of ourselves as artists instead of commercial artists, when you work commercially you have deadlines and schedules and we didn’t really have that here other than the fact that we wanted to premier at Sundance – though we never said which Sundance! So we wanted a rich aesthetic to make this animation which would be impossible to make commercially because it was so complicated, hundreds of layers of colour, each with their own layer of shadow and highlight.

Video below demonstrates the many layers used in the film

I noticed that the film uses a lot of P.O.V shots.

Dan – The whole film is based indoors and is all from memory, so we wanted to get the guys focus on his memories, so he wouldn’t focus on faces or other people so the main focus was the mouth area and we also wanted to have a claustrophobic feeling that would come with such a focussed recollection as well. Tom described it as going into an aeroplane toilet and seeing yourself in the mirror with all this horrible detail because you’re too close to the mirror to see yourself properly, we wanted to capture that self disgust.

Flies also seem to be used prominently.

Storyboard from teeth

Dan – That was to do with the mother not been there, the mother leaves the story at the beginning with the “boob bite” so the flies symbolise an unclean house His mother wasn’t really there to get rid of those little items, and as the film goes on it starts to signify a rotting of perspective and ideas. We don’t say the mother has left the house, but her interest has gone. The nice thing about short films like that is we don’t leave the audience alone long enough for them to wonder where the mother has gone.

As with t.o.m you appear to use a kind of “punch line” to end the film, what’s the thinking behind that? 

Dan – With t.o.m we didn’t want it to be a punchline at the end, we thought of it as a realisiation of the mood, so we held it extra long so it was less of a drum cymbal crash and more of an reflective pause. With teeth we didn’t want an explanation of the story, more a sudden incident, and it’s a nice mechanic to have the tongue land of the plate like a cymbal crash, there’s definitely a punch line in teeth.

You certainly feel the awkwardness at the end of t.o.m and maybe people reach for their gobs at the end of teeth.

Dan – Yes, when you watch teeth with an audience it’s a really interesting experience you can feel people stop breathing at certain points therea really werid tension in the room, its really quite nice!

Tom – I like to sit on the sidelines or at the back and watch people recoil in horror, especially when people react at the beginning, I think “you just wait!”

(They both laugh)

Is there a particular moment that the audience jump to for me it was the bit with the knife (pictured)

Tom – That’s the most popular scene of horror! I think that once has a lot to do with the sound design which was done by our friends at Ant Food.

Did you set out to make a horror film? The voice work of Richard E. Grant gives it that vibe.

Tom – We wanted to make a film that was uncomfortable for the viewer but not necessarily a horror film, it was actually when we got the first work in progress sound design back from Ant Food that, not only was this a real film we were making, but also it was sort of a horror film.

Dan – We really enjoy the audience manipulation and we really wanted to make people feel uncomfortable en masse, it turned into a horror film but it wasn’t our initial goal.

An extended version of this interview will be available on the next Skwigly Animation Podcast, until then Tom and Dan have shared an exclusive look at the first draft of the films script below.

Teeth/Faust

COPYRIGHT OF HOLBROOK’S FILMS
[TO BE READ IN A HEAVY LISP BY AN ELDERLY VOICE]

I received my first tooth at the age of two and a half. This was by all accounts particularly late in a child’s development but my mother had always said that this was a blessing, that I was also late to be weened.

I did not enjoy teething so much; it’s unpleasantness developed in me a certain disregard for these hard buds erupting from my gums, interrupting the smooth journey of my tongue around my mouth. I found biting with conviction on firm objects to be of benefit and suitable punishment for the teeth. I would chew on table legs. I would chew on chair legs. I would take to chewing any leg I could get my young mandible around. Surprisingly my teeth survived this intentional barbarity only to be defeated by a sweet toffee apple (central incisor). This victory for me against my teeth was short lived for these were primary teeth, these were milk teeth. As more and more of these minor teeth left me by various means, I gave little of the typical thought to the tooth fairy; the financial benefit was not necessary as my mother was a generous giver of pocket money. This enabled me to always be in good supply of all things sweet. In any case, the primary teeth were only present to ultimately make way for the adult teeth.
Again I built up a healthy distaste for the teeth as they sprouted a new and by the age of six and a half I had unfortunately now gained a complete and fresh set. In my formative years I was a particularly faddy caretaker for my teeth. I would brush infrequently for I had no interest in their welfare, only the sugariness that passed them by and settled up on my tongue.

Unexpectedly my first lost adult tooth was not a victim to this carelessness but was in-fact knocked out by boyish tom foolery. At eleven years of age a pre-planned chance meeting behind the school resulted in an inconspicuous bicuspid becoming an absent bicuspid. The gap left by this missing tooth was thoroughly explored and enjoyed by my tongue with fond reminiscence. I failed to become any more capable a fighter. This was of little bother to me and I in fact went on to lose four more in the following nine years through acts of violence (two more bicuspids and a molar) and another four through the enjoyment of all things sweet and a disregard for dental hygiene (three molars and a lower incisor). My tongue was grateful for the smooth allotments left behind.
At the age of nineteen I began to get inpatient with my mother and decided that I was in need of a bride. Much to my disappointment, the opposite sex did not share in my opposition to pulp, dentine and enamel. A cynical trip to the dentist was called for.

Early Style Exploration

At the age of twenty one I lost two more incisors through medical intervention and gained my first set of partial dentures. I was not an ugly man by any means but I was also not choice. I was pleasantly idle, enjoying staticity and pleasures of sweet taste. I was not picky in my choice of bride.
At the age of twenty two I was married.
At the age of twenty three I was now living away from the family home and mother seemed particularly pleased about the arrangement, as was I. Normal oral disservice then resumed: my dentures were dismissed to a forgotten draw and the tooth bush banished from my conscience.

http://i958.photobucket.com/albums/ae69/skwiglymagazine/tt_003_zpsw2tjhkjv.gif

The next twenty five years were, in the tradition of married life, uneventful. I lost another five teeth to decay; a pair of incisors at twenty four, a canine at twenty six and a molar a year later. I lost another two through misadventure: an incisor and a molar. My tongue could now lavish.
I reached the age of forty eight and my wife had finally grown accustomed to her situation. By then I had lost enough teeth to begin missing them in my day-to-day mastication of food, even if my tongue was now comfortable in the smoothness. It took another six years to resolve myself a set of complete dentures. It was only then, presented with the disembodied teeth, that the full beauty of this substantial link between food, tongue, throat and stomach became apparent.

A multitude of brushes, floss, tooth pastes, picks, scrapers, mirrors, soluble tablets, creams, polish and disinfectants were purchased. The teeth were now a fierce hobby of mine.
Mother passed away when I was fifty five.

I cannot pinpoint the exact age this hobby became an obsession but an obsession it became. I began to place the form of the teeth above the function, vetting and analysing my food for potential risk of the teeth falling fowl. Strawberries needed to be thinly sliced with a knife and placed upon my tongue with a fork to avoid the seeds becoming stuck in my incisors. Sweet corn needed to be plucked from the cob and peeled by hand. Popcorn was avoided all together. Many foods in fact became avoided. Avoided or, with meats for example, mashed. Some not only mashed but filtered and separated and mashed again, all for the sake of keeping the teeth pristine. My overt fascination with teeth soon began to spread outside the realm of my own and onto others. Other people’s and later, other species. I began to collect many animal teeth and took great care in studying them.

By the age of sixty I had amassed a collection of complete sets of teeth from over eighty animals.
At the age of sixty one I began to think about how I could combine these specialised points; that perhaps I could improve upon my teeth and realise the perfect cutting, tearing and mashing tools.
At the age of sixty two I separated the species and sorted the teeth into categories of size and shape.
My wife died in my sixty seventh year. Or maybe the year after.

Through my thorough studies I became convinced that I had come to a combination of inter-species teeth that could not be better matched. I gathered my resources and set to work on the construction. My meticulousness meant that they were not finished swiftly, but they were of utmost quality.
In my seventieth the impressive and fierce set of teeth were completed. The crafted mandibles were a sight to behold: an array of razor sharp flush incisors of incremental size tapered to canines. Canines that were not over-sized but were big enough to take purchase above the tooth line. Large, highly evolved molars followed, looking more than capable of easily grinding bone, let alone strawberry pips, bookending the set. The teeth were now ready to be tested out.

In my seventy first year I lost the tip of my tongue.

COPYRIGHT OF HOLBROOK’S FILMS

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