Peep and the Village

: • ANIMATION ON LOCATION • PffP AND THf BIG WIDf WORLD Kaj Pindal works on Peep and the Big Peep and Wide World in a slightly seedy building in downtown Toronto that houses the the Village NFB Ontario Studio. The office is stark, strictly functional, and full of bright nat· ural light. Drawings litter the tables, spilling onto the floor, and the animation camera and stand go almost unnoticed. Pindal's assistant, Craig Welch (a gra· duate of Sheridan College), is sometimes laborator, Rose Newlove. For 10 years drama, " ... you get very involved in the next door in 'The Tomb', the dark, by Patricia Thompson they ran the Animated Film Workshop story initially, and have a lot of fun on the black· hole editing room where, among for nine· to 18·year·olds in and around finishing - the sound and editing... My other chores, he sorts soundtracks. t was a year ago when I heard that, for Toronto, assisted by the Ontario Arts relationship to the animators is one of Since this series of three 10· minute the first time in many, many years, the Council and the Art Gallery of Ontario. support. Once there is something to see, films is for the three·to·five tiny tots IOntario Studio of the National Film Federenko was a summer student at the there is something to get involved group, the drawings are engagingly Board in Toronto was producing two National Film Board, Montreal, and this with." clean and simple (see them frolic animation projects: Peep and the Big led to Every Child (1978/79) which around these pages... ), and the story· Wide World and Village ofIdiots. The won an Academy Award in 1979. board doesn't have too many words. time lag gives you an idea of how long Federenko returned to Toronto in 1980 The characters of Peep the chicken, animation can be on location. The two and the workshops continued until Chirp the robin, and Quack the duck, enterprises are as different as chalk and 1984, when they were stopped cold by come from the short, The Peep Show, cheese - Peep, a series, is nearing com· the advent of home computers. With Pindal made at the NFB in 1962. At the pletion, while Village ofIdiots will take Newlove, he worked on a series of flip· end of that mm, the threesome was left much longer and may, indeed, warrant books about science, a three· year pro· on an island, about to try and get ac· another update in a year's time. So, let's ject commissioned by David Suzuki. quainted with the world. Now, after a stop all this titillation and get down to This was interrupted for seven months quarter· century, they begin their travels the facts ... by work on Skyward, the first animated film in the huge IMAX format, for Japan's THf ANIMATORS World Fair in 1985. Kaj Pindal came to Canada in 1957 from his native Denmark, after working on animated films there and in Sweden and Germany. He went to the National Film Board in Montreal expecting to stay one year, but remained until 1977 making, among others, What On Earth, King size, and Caninabis Ounkie Dog). He then taught in the notable animation course at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, but continued to work on can· tract with the NFB, turning out a serks of about 15 fire prevention vignettes THf PRODUCfR featuring his Old Lady character from I Michael Scott has been with the National Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Film Board since 1966, starting as a sum· Fly. The Board made Laughlines, a 26· mer student in Montreal and then spend minute film about Pindal and his work, in ing 11 years there. He returned to Win· 1979. After leaving Sheridan College in nipeg, the city of his birth, and stayed in 1984, he worked on a series of around the Board's office for nine more years, 20 short cartoons for West German TV - moving to Toronto and the Ontario "really one· liners on sports themes," Studio in 1985. Scott has directed and/or says Pindal. His present contract with produced more than 50 documentary, the NFB is for a series of three 10· minu te dramatic and animated films, and has had films, aimed at pre· kindergarten chilo his fair share of glory. A short documen· dren, with the overall title of Peep and tary, Whistling Smith (1975), received the Big Wide World. an Academy Award nomination as did Eugene Federenko, animator of Vil Richard Condie's animated film The Big lage. went to the Ontario College of Art Snit in 1985. It was during his Winnipeg in Toronto, where he met his col- period, when teamed up with longtime school friend Richard Condie, that he Patricia Thompson is the editor o/The developed a keen interest in animators. Canadian Film Yearbook. He says it's very much like working on -- 4/Cinema Canada - January 1988 • ANIMATION ON LOCATION • in Peep and the Big Wide World, mee ting a cat (not to be trusted, it is said), a ladybug, a turtle, and a frog who speaks out of both sides of his mouth. I went to a test run back in March in Jenny's room at the Clinton Street Day Care Centre in Toronto. Arlene Mosco vich, who ·worked on the sCript and is now educational consultant on the se ries, gathered up a group ranging from 2 1/ 2 to -l years. She showed them draw ings of Peep, Quack and Chirp, and also Tom (the pussycat "who lives in the se cond mOvie"), Nellie (the country dog) and Frog, who are in the third film . A vi deo came next and the children got into the spirit of things right away, cheerfully imitating the noises - "peep, peep''', "quack, Peep''', "chirp, chirp'" They started talking during the voice-over bits, but soon perked up and vastly en • Becoming Shmendrik joyed repeating "b-i-i-g wide world" at the end. Arlene knows 11 minutes is too had a crazy story in mind and came back exactly like Chelm, with similar cows, fa partial mask. Then Rose 'collages' the long - tinies start wriggling and writhing to him with a storyboard. Village of miliar people telling similar stories, and photographs until my face looks like a before that - but as a test it's O.K Idiots utilizes the Russian concept of a woman who is the spitting image of his drawing!" They have also tried making a The choice of a voice for the narration multi-plane image, in the mode of Tale wife! model of the road Shmendrik travels. was thoroughly chewed over and finally, of Tails by Yuri Norstein (which was Federenko and Newlove collaborated "The road becomes real, but he leaves an in May, Pindal met Peter Ustinov in a stu greatly admired when shown in the early on the storyboard. Federenko worked artwork village," Federenko continues, '80s at the International Animation Fes dio in Switzerland to record. When Usti on the original drawings for two to three "Shmendrik is not quite artwork himself, tival in Ottawa). nov was in Toronto in September he po months adding that, when all goes well, but in the real world he finds an artwork Scott and I arrived at Rose Newlove's sed for some giggly publicity shots, and " ... I go through a whole pencil a day'" village. This is a perfect technique for when Pindal asked ifhe'd do more, Usti apartment/studio over a store in the Then they started to look for a solution the story." west end of Toronto, and Eugene Fede nov was enthUSiastiC, so maybe the se .to the problem of presenting Shmendrik Eugene Federenko and Rose Newlove, renko stood at the top of a steep flight of ries will be extended_ - "which requires a subtlety which some two meticulous craftspeople sustained stairs. I walked up, through the open The animation of this series has pro techniques do not allow," stated Fede and encouraged by a much-maligned door to the start of a long hallway, and gressed rapidly, due to some successful renko. Cut-outs of the characters were public institution, continue to pursue what a wonderful Sight greeted me ! One experimentation with the computer. considered, and then they tried masks their own unique form of artwork. They wall was completely covered with the Pindal has drawn all the characters and for live actors. Federenko showed me a are completely absorbed in a creative ar whole storyboard of Village ofldiots - situations in black outline, "Like a stain mask from his own face by Newlove, and tistic experiment, surrounded by a about 200 exquisitely executed small ed glass window without any colour," he said, "When I put my head down on the world obsessed with automation, do-it pencil draWings, all illuminated by pho says_ They are shot straight onto a digital kitchen table for Rose to apply the rub quick, and cheap. It will be a year or tofloods. disk, each drawing is put onto the com ber latex to my face, I told her she was more before the finished film bursts The story is based on a play of the puter screen, Pindal selects from a vast the only one I would trust to do this - upon us. same name by John Lazarus (who is col palette of colours and a technician fol and then my eyelashes got caught in the Here are two animators coming from laborating with Federenko) which, in lows the colouring instructions. This latex! " different age groups, with stories direc turn, comes from folk tales of the Polish really speeds up a time-consuming pro The next treat was in Rose 's studio at ted to widely separated audiences, and Jewish ghettos of the '20s, and tells of cess without, Pindal avows, detracting the end of the hallway.

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