MORALITY TALE : AN INTERVIEW WITH LAITH BAHRANI

Laith Bahrani's quirky animations have gained recognition in various magazines such as Computer Arts and attracted a number of high profile clients. After creating the superb Low Morale shorts, Laith went on to animate his own 'Low Morale' version of Radiohead's Creep. This was followed by the music video for the christmas 2006 number 1, JCB Song by Nizlopi. His latest animations, Hard as Snails and Everloving can be viewed at his official site www.monkeehub.com.

EC: Welcome to Erth Chronicles Laith.

LB: Thanks for having me here Richard, I like what you’ve done with the place…

EC: Where were you brought up and how has this imprinted on your visual style?

LB: My formative years were spent in a sleepy little backwater village deep in the pace-maker aided heart of Surrey, just outside London. My upbringing was idyllic to say the least and the backdrop to my childhood capers consisted of, amongst other things: a large deserted piece of land featuring a fully functioning apple orchard, a derelict fountain teeming with wildlife and a huge empty haunted Victorian manor house. Virtually every weekend was spent cavorting through forests chasing all manner of frogs, newts, dragonflies, snakes and ghosts. Eventually the land was purchased by developers and raped of all natural beauty to make way for six charmless properties but not before it had time to impress an indelible influence on my life. Even during the period when the land was being ‘modernised’, my friends and I managed to turn the cemented maze-like foundations of new housing plots into an exposed labyrinth of corridors and tasks. Growing up with such a fantastical playground nurtured a fervent and wild imagination and this has probably helped me develop an artistic style infused with fantasy and idealism. I also like the colour blue.

EC: Have you been self-taught or did you attend Art School, College / University?

LB: An affiliation with drawing and animation is something that has been with me since birth and I have been unreliably informed that my first words were Bugs Bunny’. A lot of my youth was frittered away watching Warner Bros cartoons before scampering upstairs to doodle on any parchment to hand whilst my tongue protruded from my mouth in a strenuous attempt to taste my own face. Despite this passion for animation I have never actually undertaken any education or training in the field. In essence I am completely self-taught and I have used the opportunities presented through education, and particularly through my multimedia degree at the University of Plymouth, to steer my work towards the areas I wanted to explore and to learn the software required. During University I was introduced to programs such as Flash, Photoshop, After Effects and MSN which opened up an infinite universe of creativity and freedom. I viewed these programs merely as advanced pieces of paper and in this way I approached them with an attitude of experimentation.

EC: Explain your process of working.

LB: Broadly speaking most projects will be subjected to a similar procedure. An initial brief (the more open the better as far as I’m concerned) will be discussed and dissected with my creative co-pilot Greg Rudman. Greg is a great friend of mine and someone I have worked with for a long time so we are able to bounce ideas of each other easily and achieve some seriously lateral thought. Single sessions can last anything up to 6 hours as we try to decipher a song with a view to pitching a music video or discuss animation ideas. Best of all our juvenile and homogenous humour means it never feels like work. From a miasma of mediocrity and banality that inevitably congeals a few ideas will spawn and crawl around seeking our approval. The ideas are then discussed from a technical and schedule perspective and then interrogated further to see if they have potential to grow. If after much scrutiny we can still discuss the idea with enthusiasm and vigour we know we’ve got something to go on with.

Once an idea has been established the next stages involve planning, perseverance, pressure, and programs. Styles are tested in Photoshop and rough shots or storyboards are created to help guide things. Then it’s into the merciless infinite void of blackness that is the animation process. Food becomes a luxury, social life is condensed to the 3 letter acronym ‘MSN’, and you remember with hazy nostalgia the times when sleep was a right, not a privilege.

EC: How important is working in your sketchbook - from the smallest thumbs to fleshed out sketches and storyboards?

LB: As mentioned earlier I tend to treat programs like Flash and Photoshop as advanced pieces of paper so as an extension of this ethos I find it relatively natural to sketch and draft directly into them. Almost all of my work is created in digital form so when I have an idea I’m eager to begin testing it on screen and finding technical solutions to the aesthetic challenges. Working in this way I can try out concepts, techniques and styles with haste and gauge their feasibility before committing fully.

EC: Research is an integral part of the design process – do you feel that this helps inform ourselves and the work we produce?

LB: The great thing about an artistic or creative field of work is that research becomes an almost autonomous and sub-conscious activity that occurs whenever we are awake. Every day we are bombarded with colours, patterns, forms, perspectives, opinions and noises from other paradigms. Many of these influences are surreptitiously absorbed and when a creative person intercepts a brief the chances are that they already have a generously filled pool of resources and references to call on. Research in this sense is constantly informing our work and our approach to design.

With respect to a particular project or brief the research for me is intrinsically interwoven into the process of brainstorming and drafting. During these phases I will seek visual and conceptual references often using the phenomenally vast media libraries such as Google images and YouTube as a starting point. In addition I’ll reflect on any personal experiences and opinions that relate to the project in an effort to find an individual aspect that could contribute towards a piece.

EC: What is it about illustration you enjoy so much?

LB: The greatest part of the illustrative process for me is the opportunity to try and capture an ephemeral, intangible and esoteric concept through imagery. It’s the challenge and excitement of staring at a blank canvas with an aim to give form and colour to something that has previously existed exclusively as words, narrative or mere thoughts and knowing it could go in any direction you choose.

EC: When did you first begin to explore animation?

LB: Animation was a natural progression from my love of drawing as a kid so my foray into the world of moving images began in earnest from a young age. My introduction was greatly aided and perhaps even instigated by a very talented kid I befriended in my primary school called Joe Green. At the paltry age of eight he was an even bigger cartoon enthusiast than me and his knowledge of Disney cartoons and old comic strips was already encyclopaedic. It was Joe who first introduced me to the concept of flick-books and we would spend hours drawing self-styled characters and then bringing them to stuttering misaligned life on tiny pads of papers. Joe also presented me with my first sheet of acetate and I remember listening in awe as he explained how many sheets of it were used to create the Disney feature film Snow White. Our early efforts of animation were naturally painfully crude but the theory and principles behind flick-books were a great way to start.

EC: Tell us more about Everloving.

LB: Everloving is a short story I was inspired to start in response to a personal situation. An idea for a dark tale of love struck me on Xmas day and I spent the next 2 months creating the opening. Sadly other commitments and lack of budget have forced me to shelve the project for now but it is something I want to return to when the time allows because I think/hope it could be quite a powerful piece. The story will unfold to show the firefly and prisoner creating a chalk montage on the prison wall before they are separated, the montage is destroyed and the prisoner escapes.

EC: Your animation style seems to have moved on from your 2D style – Everloving is an excellent example of a creative exploring new techniques and looking at the potential of 3D. Was this a conscious decision to increase your skills?

LB: For every project I strive to create a style and execution that works for the piece as opposed to adopting previous or signature styles. Rather than a conscious decision to explore new techniques my desire to create the right mood and aesthetic leads to experimentation which gives rise to new techniques.

When I got the idea for Everloving I knew instantly that I wanted to create a dark, mournful yet beautifully rich and solid style. Having only a basic working knowledge of 3D I decided to try to find a way to do animated character using flat colours in flash and then add texture and volume in After Effects. After a few weeks I had forged a main character that was completely 2D but with delusions of 3D grandeur.

EC: How long do you spend on planning your animations initially?

LB: It will vary according from project to project, but much of the planning is done during the concept development stage where ideas are discussed and fine tuned. After that there might be a rough storyboard or a few sketches to act as a guide and then the animation can start. Where possible I like to keep things open enough to allow ideas and spontaneous sparks of inspiration to be incorporated during the overall process.

EC: How did the Creep music video come about? Were the visuals developed directly from how the lyrics made you feel at the time?

LB: The Creep video was started as a lip syncing experiment to the iconic Radiohead song using the main character I had developed for the www.lowmorale.co.uk series. Stuck in a job I detested and facing unrequited love the song struck me with powerful poignancy and so was the ideal choice to give voice to a character that aimed to personify my pain and plight. After deciding that the character looked quite good singing, I proceeded to do a bit more lip syncing and then felt compelled to introduce a background. Much like the style of the animated scenery, the ideas and animation for Creep evolved very naturally and organically. In this sense the animation was uncontrived and truly a reflection of how I felt at the time. After 3 months of working every night after work and every weekend the piece was finished and released to a seemingly sympathetic world.

EC: Has Thom and the rest of the band seen it?

LB: I’m not entirely certain but I would imagine/hope so. Through a contact at W.A.S.T.E, Radiohead’s merchandising company the video was sent directly to the management of Radiohead who replied by email with praise.

EC: The JCB Song was known about way before anyone was aware of the song – how was the song and subsequently the animation suddenly revived?

LB: Although the video and website were completed by around mid 2005 I think basically the song took a while to gather enough momentum to break through to the mainstream. It was only after the site began getting so much attention that the industry began to take a bit more notice of the band and slowly but surely they got more airtime. By Xmas it seems the public mood and appetite had aligned with the songs message and it had enough weight and recognition to become No.1.

EC: What artists and animators inspire you?

LB: Anyone who has spent more than 12 hours non-stop drawing or animating is an inspiration.

EC: What inspired you to come up with Hard as Snails?

LB: Hard as Snails was created after receiving a brief from Red Bull to create a short animation about ‘Adrenalin’. During the inevitable brainstorming that followed me and some friends explored the idea of snails as the antithesis to adrenalin rush. This led to the question: Do snails feel adrenalin? Having decided that, yes, they do, we began developing ideas around what snails might do to achieve the ultimate rush. This became packaged as little show called Hard As Snails.

EC: Creatively what will keeps your next project from being a step backwards?

LB: Alcohol.

EC: You’re very much in awe of SF & Fantasy – are you working your way towards a dream project and ideas for your own feature?

LB: There are too many dream projects to mention but I would love to do something in an unadulterated fantasy genre. Some of my favourite films growing up were fantasy adventures like ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Never ending story’ and they display amazing imagination and style the likes of which I would enjoy trying to achieve. I recently did a birthday card for someone and would love to make an animation in a similar style: www.monkeehub.com/myspace/elicard

EC: Any other creators that you’d like to collaborate with?

LB: Radiohead remain the only specifically targeted ‘creators’ I would like to work with. Otherwise I am always interested in working with talented creative people.

EC: What advice would you give to artists at Erth Chronicles in continuing to effectively bring someone else’s vision to life?

LB: The standard of some of the work on the site is amazing so I’d feel unqualified to give direct advice. Personally speaking a key to bringing a vision to life is insight; being able to really see the characters/scene. The best way for me to achieve insight is good old fashion thought, and lots of it.

EC: What’s the most important professional advice you would give a prospective artist?

LB: Run away.

EC: Complete this sentence: Three cavemen are sitting round a fire, one says to the other…www.monkeehub.com/misk/cavemen.jpg

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