interview by Simon Sellars

Originally published on Sleepy Brain, 20 June 2003.

NOTE: This is the full version of an interview that was published in various forms in the Age newspaper and RealTime magazine. Bear in mind that I interviewed Adam prior to his Oscar win for Harvie Krumpet. Neither of us had any idea of what was to unfold over the next few months, and to see Adam on television in his red cravat accepting his Academy Award was like seeing the good bloke next door through the wrong end of a telescope. A well-deserved win, naturally, but surreal and dislocating as well.

Adam Elliot is possibly Australia’s most successful director of short film. His 23-minute claymation, Harvie Krumpet, won three of the four major prizes at the 2003 Annecy festival, the world’s premier animation showcase. That success makes it eligible for Oscar nomination. Harvie also won the Melbourne International Film Festival’s Best Australian Short Award.

While at the VCA, Elliot had the idea for Uncle – his quirky, fascinating character study – and wanted to do it as drawn animation. But his lecturers convinced him to try a different tack.

How did Uncle end up as claymation?

At the VCA, one lecturer in particular, Robert Stephenson, saw something that I didn’t. Also, we had to do a 30-second claymated exercise at the beginning of the year that involved making a TV commercial for snail pellets, and my little grey snail seemed to exude a certain something. I had fairly decent carpentry skills that my father taught me as a child, so I already had a firm grounding to make models and sets. Everyone else seemed to be doing cel animation and there was a lot of 3D equipment at my disposal, so all these factors pushed me into a career with plasticine!

Can you see yourself making 2D films now?

No. I’m definitely pigeonholed as a claymator. People also ask me if I want to do live action, but I just enjoy making things I suppose – it’s the “hands on” aspect. I don’t think I could do computer animation. I’d get very frustrated being in front of a computer screen all day. I love to get my hands dirty, and I’ve always loved making things out of pipe cleaners and egg cartons since I was a kid. Computers just frustrate me endlessly.

Elliot is an open, generous interviewee: wistful, philosophical and funny. It’s a cliche, sure, but certainly applicable here: his “enthusiasm is infectious”. He tells me that he was born with a physiological tremor that affects his entire nervous system. Everyone shakes, he says, but he does more than most. The disorder is absorbed into his work: his models are bigger than normal, making it easier for him to move them. Perhaps it also accounts for the distinct look his characters have: all wobbly, misshapen body parts.

Does your condition feed into your animation style?

It’s funny. My films are about people with disorders. And I’ve got a disorder myself. But I’m on some medication at the moment, which is really helping to control it. In Cousin, the Cousin character takes anticonvulsants to help his cerebral palsy and the irony is that’s exactly what they’ve put me on in the last few weeks. People often ask me how much of me is in my films, and at first I say they’re quite fictitious. But perhaps there’s some kind of subconscious thing going on.

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