An Interview with Luiz Stockler – filmmaker, storyteller, people-watcher

Luiz Lafayette Stockler is a 25 year old award winning director and animator. I recently discovered his film Vovô on Vimeo and was immediately struck by the powerful simplicity and the beautiful way the story is told. I have been lucky enough to find some incredible work on Vimeo just recently and Luiz’s film is most certainly in that category.

 

Vovô from Luiz Lafayette Stockler on Vimeo.

 

I managed to track Luiz down and he was kind enough to answer some questions about his film and his own process of storytelling.

You say in your Twitter profile “North Wales via Brazil” – what’s the story there?

I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to a Brazilian father and a Welsh mother. My parents worked with horses and were professional showjumpers who competed at the highest level in south america. when I was 8 years old, my dad was offered a job in Scotland riding horses for a breeder, so we moved to the UK. my dad has since moved back to Brazil.

You are soon to start at the London Royal College of Art – what are you studying?

I am starting an MA in Animation at the Royal college of Art, it’s quite a prestigious school in the animation world so I was ecstatic when I was offered a place!

Your short animated film Vovô has caused quite a stir online, what do you enjoy most about your film?

I think the one thing I enjoy the most out of my film is that its such a personal story to me, but also something that I think anyone can relate to in some way or another. It has a universal theme that makes it accessible to people.

Vovô has quite a sad story to it, is the film something you have created out of personal experiences or is it purely fiction?

Vovô is the Portuguese word for grandfather. The film is about my childhood memories of my grandfather when I was growing up in Brazil, up until his untimely death during a summer holiday I spent back in Rio visiting my family when I was 19, I havent been back since.

What sort of time did you dedicate to the Vovô project? Does it take a long time to create something so polished?

It was made during my third year of my BA in Animation at the University of Wales, Newport. I had the whole year to work on it from development/pre-production/production/post production to finished piece….the script was the easiest part, I wrote that in a day and took about 5 drafts to get it right, I got a lot of help and feedback from my friends which helped a lot…the rest of the film went through so many changes and doubt/insecurities that I almost gave up and considered re-doing the year. Because of its personal element it became very easy to lose sight of what I was trying to make. I think as a filmmaker/artist/musician/writer etc… you can become quite precious of your idea and it can be quite hard to stand back and take a look at it with an open mind. I had all these storyboards and animatics that no longer made sense to me so in the end I had to become a bit ruthless with it all and I just let spontaneity take over and freestyled most of the film, animating it in six weeks. I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone though as I hardly slept, but I thrived on the pressure. luckily most of the scenes were fairly simple to animate, otherwise it would have taken a lot longer. the best thing I had throughout though was my friends/fellow classmates, without their help I dont think I would have made this film the way I did. I cant thank them enough.

 

Showreel 2010 from Luiz Lafayette Stockler on Vimeo.

 

How do you maintain a sense of self and originality when there is so much incredible work published these days? What advice would you give a young artist or illustrator about finding their own way of doing things?

I think I’ve always struggled with drawing things ‘well’, I’m terrible at proportion/perspective etc…so the only way I could put to paper what is in my mind is to simplify it by about a 100 times, I always say that my work is a bad version of what I saw in my head. I think the most important/useful advice I ever got given was to play to your strengths, I kept things simple because thats the way I’ve always worked in my sketchbooks. You can get excited by a new technique or visual style or even a software plug-in that you end up getting carried away with it and lose perspective on what you’re trying to do, you also lose that raw connection you had with your work in the first place. Keep it simple, play to your strengths and do what excites you.

Do you consciously strike a balance between the depth of the story and the way it is told?

When I was coming up with visuals, I was told by a friend that if something is being said then we dont need to see it everytime, it’s like we’re being told something twice. With this in mind, I tried to think less literal and more metaphorically and symbolically about what was on screen, I thought about how the viewer could learn so much more about the characters without being told, but rather shown. I also think it has something to do with songwriting, I’ve written songs since i was young so I’ve always been used to telling stories in a stripped down/brief way. The script of the film ended up being a progression of my songwriting.

Your film is centred around the relationships of two people and very focused on particular idiosyncrasies, what do you like about people-watching?

I’ve always been interested in people watching. I like how you can tell a lot about a person before you’ve even had a conversation with them. The way they walk, the way they dress, cross their legs, hold a cigarette etc… we show a lot of who we are using just body language and I think I have been good at mimicking that in people from a young age, I was always doing impressions of friends and family, copying their gestures and behavioural nuances – something which has definitely helped me when it comes to animating characters.

Do you have any projects you are currently working on that you can share?

I’m currently just saving money for my big move to London and the Royal College of Art. apart from that, I’m constantly doing illustrations and working on ideas for films, which you can see on my blog at http://luizstockler.wordpress.com

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Many thanks to Luiz for sharing his thoughts and taking the time to answer some questions. Working with children in school around the issues in Luiz’s film can be difficult and as teachers we are often a central part of the support that can be provided to children who are dealing with personal loss. Perhaps this film could be used to help an open discussion around these sensitive and difficult times.

Of course at the heart of the film is the story and such a narrative could be explored more widely in terms of the way it is told, un-picking the brevity of narration and how it is paired with visual metaphor and symbols as Luiz explained.

I hope you enjoyed the film and hearing from Luiz himself, perhaps you will see a place for it in your own curriculum or to support the work you are doing with children. I am sure you will join me in wishing Luiz every success when he joins the Royal College this September and in his future work.

Play With Fire

Gever Tulley is the founder of Tinkering School which allows children the time, space and real tools to make things. In 2009 he spoke about his school at TED.

He has also a book out which intrigued me, titled “Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do)” it sets out to be a “manifesto for kids and parents alike to reclaim childhood.” The accompanying website provides space for people to share their stories about the projects they have completed and to reflect on what happened. That is where I discovered Liz Smith’s comment explaining how she and her boys had completed the Play With Fire task, I thought it expressed so much about learning, parenting and life.

Fire is an awesome thing, it creates and destroys and often simultaneously. My sons Josh and Hooper can often be found hovering around our backyard fire pit testing the power of the flame. Water is a necessity, as is basic safety(no bare feet, long pants, awareness) and we have learned some powerful lessons. Fireplay from a fairly early age-s\’mores were just the beginning- has allowed my sons to be aware, be careful and be adventurous. My eldest, now fifteen, is a certified blacksmith and has constructed a simple traditional forge with his dad in our urban backyard. The nine year old has created primitive pigments and used the blackened ends of sticks to draw and decorate the patio(rain washes it away) and on occasion himself. We have cooked entire primitive meals over this fire pit, and watching the boys experiment with both the heat and the aftermath of fire has been a powerful parenting tool. We have burnt fingers, made holes in pants, and seen what happens when we heat a variety of materials. Being able to be safe and independently explore fire is a necessary skill, it confirms knowledge is safety, and it allows them to hold the power to create objects and light the night skies.

I think I would like to visit Gever’s school one day.

What intrigues me is how the children who take part then go back into normal school life – how has the experience affected them? What new skills do they put to work? Do they see school in a different light? Do they hold on to the “anything is possible” spark when they return home, to school and to learning?

Copyright Cops

According to the most recent EU Kids Online research over one third of 9-12 year olds and three quarters of 13-16 year olds who use the internet in Europe have their own profile on a social networking site. I discovered this wonderful film from Julio Secchin which not only depicts the way that our youngsters use the web but also some of the wider implications.

It is such a thought provoking film with enough depth and quality to provide rich instigation and inspiration for discussion with youngsters about their online and offline behaviours. I will certainly use it when I get the chance.

Julio Secchin explains that:

“This is a short film about teenagers who are growing up in an environment with tons of information per second, being treated as criminals as they download a couple of songs from the internet, while trying to chat with their friends. The main goal here is make a reflection on subjects like freedom of information, online relationships and how all this blends or inside the head of a teenager, no matter where he lives”

Copyright Cops from Julio Secchin on Vimeo.

Of course the film is completely open source and allows anyone to remix and remake using the content, perhaps a engaging project for children at your school to present a remixed film about copyright or internet use.

Let me know what you think and of course comment on Julio’s film and share with him what you make of it.

One Question Surveys – What do you want to find out about?

I have started a little project that wil post some simple surveys on education and/or technology. The Apple v Android survey managed to draw well over 1000 responses and I would like to attempt the same for a wider group of questions.

Go to >> http://onequestionsurveys.posterous.com

1qsurveys

You can do three different things on the site:

>VOTE – add your preferences or votes to open surveys

>RESULTS – explore the outcomes of the completed surveys and add your comments, results will be published after 1000 responses – chunky results!

>SUGGEST – make a suggestion about a question to survey, I will try and make as many worthwhile questions active surveys as I can. In fact you can make a suggestion in the form below right now – it could be anything from preferences, tech choices, future of education, other school or tech related issues.

I would like the survey outcomes to be used in combination with each other so that they might form a wider picture of an issue. For example after a time you might pull all the mobile surveys together or all the results tagged “curriculum”. All the content is CC-A-NC-SA licensed so you can use them in your presentations or blog posts.

I hope you can lend your support to this little project.