Join the Animated Conversation

Somewhere in a dusty potting shed, two young 4mations directors, Simon Cartwright and Jessica Cope, are busy building sets, props, and, errrm, heads, for their upcoming stop motion film The Astronomer’s Sun…

Congratulations! You both graduated last year and you’ve already won a commission. Has the experience been different so far?

This has been totally different to what we’re used to. For a start we’ve never had to be so organised before! There’s a million and one little things to take care of even with a short like this and everything needs to be budgeted and approved. We can’t believe how helpful everyone is being though, our producers especially are incredibly patient and understanding, making sure we don’t fall behind or forget anything.

What is the Astronomer’s Sun about?

The film takes place in an abandoned observatory. A young man revisits the observatory after many years to chart the progress of a coming comet and confront memories of his childhood. He is accompanied by his assistant, a clockwork Teddy bear. What they discover leads them on a journey into the unknown.

You have a lovely blog about your project. Do you find it helpful to document your progress in this way?

Definitely, a lot goes into a film like this which never gets seen in the final piece and it’s great to show all that in the blog. We love seeing behind the scenes so we want to document our own processes and the journey as a whole. It’s a good opportunity to give the people helping us out the credit they deserve as well.

There’s blood, headaches, and circular walls. What’s been the hardest part of the production?

Every element has had it’s own challenges really. The set is a lot bigger than we anticipated so it’s been hard work getting that to work and a huge amount of effort has gone into making the characters look as good as possible. We’ve had to experiment a lot with materials, chemicals, paints etc. Nothing seems to happen easily for us!

You mention coffee and biscuits. Any other essentials to survive a 4mations commission?

Well there’s no way we could have done it without the help and support of both our families and friends. Aside from that the entire production is held together with duct tape.