During my MA studies I was taught to approach animation in a rather classical way: to play with elements to construct a story that would have tension and intrigue the viewer, spicing it with absurd elements. My debut film Out of Internal Worlds does exactly that—I still behaved like an obedient student. That was not enough for me. Simultaneously, during the pre-production and early production phase of Internal Worlds, I was editing Mouldy Memories. A friend of mine gave me scans of photographs on film slides that had been kept in very moist conditions, and the beauty of the mould on them was so captivating. Pure abstract flow with very simple compositing, focusing solely on the beauty of the mouldy images distorted chemically by moisture. It was a good balance for the strong struggles I was untangling while making Out of Internal Worlds, which was meticulously structured, inventing more and more connections between the elements to densify the whole. Two opposing processes in me were going on simultaneously, balancing each other.
Flow of Being started differently, triggered by a strong feeling. A friend told me a story, and I immediately felt—with certainty—that this needed to be an animated film and that I wanted to make it. This time I organically chose my team members based on instinct, on who I felt I needed. The production period was several years of daily work. Nearing the end, I noticed myself talking about this initial triggering feeling a lot. I realized that only scraps of it had remained; it was months of pulling myself through sweat and tears to finish the visual part. When adding music and sound, the existing parts found each other by themselves, and the film began to emerge on its own again.
For me, this burning inside—this conviction that I have no other choice than to make a film—is the only way I see myself as the director of an uncommissioned work. It has to come from an inner need, an urge, not just a random job. Like a plant stretching toward the sun, it can’t help it; it simply grows that way. In the beginning my feeling was not very visual; I started with a lot of thinking and testing different materials. Early on, I had the idea of mixing techniques in a way where changing them within the film would also be a method of telling the story. And the story had developed quite a bit from the original, largely thanks to Anti Naulainen, who has been helping scripting all my films. Especially in the fragile beginning it is vital to have someone believing in what we were developing and that I will find solutions. Producer Edina Csüllög was this warm triggering power. I experimented with a multi-plane setup. The backgrounds for the garden life were crafted from paper pulp and coloured with watercolours together with Helen Woolston. The tree trunks in the background forest were actually tree roots. A dear friend, Francesco Rosso, painted some elements in gouache. The nature of paper cutouts felt too rigid and wrong for the characters—I needed a more organically flowing material. Different sands and soil worked perfectly. I like to say that the woman character was born under the camera by herself. We had a very clear idea of who she is, what her neighbours are like, what her daily routine is, etc., so she was ready to “speak up” herself. Aggie Pak Yee Lee made wonderful character designs, and on the multi-plane I sprang off from her drawings.
The first shot I animated was the transition where she climbs onto the elk, as the team working on the classical drawn animation in TVPaint needed the exact frame as a reference to begin. In that shot she needed to approach the elk first, taking two timid steps. The next step I animated was not planned in advance, but again—it was about trusting the inner feeling: I felt she wanted to take one big step instead of a classical walk cycle. So she was born. The more I animated her, the more I got to know her and how she wanted to move. Her actions became more planned out; I used the drawing tools in DragonFrame to draft the movements. Her stepping from one plane to another was simply a logical continuation of the process, encouraged by the experimental spirit of the studio master, Urmas Jõemees. In order to let experiments freely flow and serve the film, I needed structure—some decisions had to be “locked,” so I didn’t have to worry about everything at once. That allowed me to focus only on movement. And at other moments I needed to be flexible with the “locked” parts, loosening them because the free flow required it. A constant dance between plan and spontaneity, the key being flexibility—adapting to the current situation.
The only shot of the multi-plane section composited digitally is the pan with the falling pinecone. All other shots were animated together with the backgrounds, all under the camera. The only visual post-work was removing dust and reflections and doing colour-grading. By the end I trusted Vessela Dancheva finds her team and music by Petar Dundakov brings out just the right pulse.
On one hand I create animation in a somewhat abstract, poetic manner on purpose; I like when it is possible to interpret the films in different ways. When a variety of words can be used to describe what is happening—and none of them are wrong. For example, different viewers have different explanations for why I use several techniques in this film and what, if anything, they are meant to express. At the same time, for myself it was unambiguously clear. When she climbs onto the elk, she makes a decision to leave her simple routine. At that moment everything changes, and at the same time remains the same. I see some decisions in life in that way. Finding an audiovisual form to express such understandings—things I sometimes cannot even find words for—is the sweet challenge I love to explore in animation.
About the author
Helen Unt (1987, Estonia) is a freelance animation creator based in Tallinn, Estonia. Her main interest is stop motion, experimenting with different materials on a multi-plane table and crafting needed details. Anyhting hands-on. She has also made classical drawn animation and feels good in including TV Paint when necessary in her work. Helen graduated BA in Printmaking, Fine Arts in EKA and MA in Animation also in EKA, Estonia. Has given different workshops in animation for various ages in several countries. She is also into contemporary dance and permaculture to widen her organic sense of life. Visit Habitat Profile.
