Reflections on my stop-frame animation series for SPIKE MILLIGAN: THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE (90mins. Yeti TV / Sky Arts), 2024

I was approached by producer-director Sebastian Barfield to become involved in a new documentary about Spike Milligan based on a recently revealed treasure-trove of his archive material. When told the parameters - to create a series of stop-frame animations using objects in the archive - my mind immediately flicked to Jan Švankmajer’s Alice - a dark surrealist animated feature made in 1988. I watched this as a student ‘on the big screen’ at London’s ICA and was blown away. It’s a masterpiece of aesthetics. I imagined typewriters working themselves and all manner of objects coming to life.

On my first visit to the archive Spike’s daughter, Jane, pulled out a box - containing odds-and-ends, junk, old tools and pairs of Spike’s spectacles - and I just started animating straight away, the pairs of glasses rushing across a table like a herd. I re-shot a few times, each time trying to imbue more character into the objects: People seemed to agree that the animation was ‘Spike-like’. What did they mean? Not sure any of us knew! Maybe just a feeling of lunacy.

I shot on a DSLR camera in time-lapse mode using natural light where possible and used no software - I just kept track of everything in my head. I tended not to plan things too carefully, experimented, and was open to embracing mistakes. You only have to look at Spike’s drawings to get that sense that the idea was all that mattered. So changing light and the odd tripod wobble were not problems - in fact these aspects brought a feeling of spontaneity. The very idea of ‘mistakes’ in art is something in which I’ve always been really interested. Something like an accidental paint dribble or smudge on a painting can really add a new dimension to an artwork. Making an artwork fast injects a feeling of dynamism. I think that, for me, it’s important not to engineer mistakes deliberately as otherwise there will be a sense of contrivance that people will sense. I was aware, whilst making the work, that Spike’s creative acts were spontaneous at every opportunity.

Thanks to all involved!

Goonacy

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