Sticks Versus Avatar
Fri, Jul 9th 2010, 17:40
So James Cameron has pushed back the boundaries of animation technology with his 3D juggernaut about giant blue marmosets versus the forces of intergalactic tree surgeons. That’s almost exactly what we – The Brothers McLeod – are doing for animation too, except with coffee stirrers, conkers, felt tip pens and crayons.
Sticks is a slice-of-life detective comedy series about Detective Inspector Plank and his bungling crew that includes Constable Witch, Constable Sergeant and Sergeant Constable. And it’s all animated using various wooden bits of cutlery. Most of the characters are drawn on coffee stirrers, but we also have a yeti on a spatula, a zombie on a pastry baster, and an evil pencil sharpener. Oh yes. Beat that Mister Cameron.
The idea for Sticks first came about a couple of years ago when Greg (the illustrator-animator half of The Brothers McLeod) drew some characters on the coffee stirrers (as you do) and we had the idea of trying to do some ad-lib stuff using them as puppets. We recorded a bunch of off-the-cuff sketches onto our naff video camera and tried to make each other laugh. A lot of it was incomprehensible, but some funny characters did emerge. Our favourites were a collection of bungling Cockney coppers and some ridiculous French private detectives.
So we set to work getting to know our characters and writing some stories for them. They include DI Plank whose more paranoid than a coke addict in a hall of mirrors, Constable Sergeant who’s as green as oak; there’s Sergeant Constable – as cunning as he is lazy, and Constable Witch who has some unorthodox police methods.
Fast forward to now and we’ve delivered eight shiny episodes of Sticks which are filtering out on BBC Comedy online. The sticks have all been hand drawn, based on Greg’s designs, by illustrator and comic artist Lizz Lunney (whose own creations include the brilliant Depressed Cat and Dungaree Lion). These have been scanned into the computer and animated in Flash by animator Tom Evans (whose credits include BAFTA nominated animations for the Tate!)
The voices are supplied by a team of five voice artists including Shakespearian actor Sam Troughton (Robin Hood), Rachel Ferjani (Torchwood), David Holt (A Town Called Panic) and yours truly.
We were planning to do the whole thing in 3D with some helicopters, spaceships and sparkly jellyfish, but we decided that would be a bit over the top.
LINKS
BBC Comedy - Sticks
Facebook Fan Page
Sticks (test animations)
