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Live Action, Sculptural Animation, and Painting Merge in the Dizzying Short Film ‘The Full Story’

Two, three, and four dimensions commingle in “The Full Story” by filmmaker Daisy Jacobs and animator Chris Wilder. In their previous, highly lauded short, “The Bigger Picture”, the duo painted animations on walls, combined with sculpture components like moveable papier maché limbs, and regular ‘real world’ objects.

In their newest film, “The Full Story,” Jacobs and Wilder tell Colossal that they “really wanted to push [themselves] creatively and try new ideas.” In addition to all the elements the duo used in “The Bigger Picture,” the newer film also incorporates human actors to tell the story of two siblings’ experience of their parents acrimonious marriage.

In order to merge the real and imagined, Jacobs and Wilder explain that they made the sets more realistic and the actors more ‘painterly’ to find a stylistic middle ground. “To make the sets more realistic we emphasized textures and brought out shine with lighting and varnish. With the real people we did the opposite–painting their clothes, minimizing shadows on their faces with make-up and making them more graphic with wigs.”

Jacobs and Wilder only animate as a pair, and explain that their work is done “straight-ahead”. Each image is painted over as they animate, which allows no room for error or second takes. To complete the film, Huw Bradford created the soundtrack and a slate of random objects worked as Foley.

You can see Jacobs in action working on “The Full Story” in the time-lapse below, and see more on her Vimeo page.

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/10/the-full-story/