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How did your interest in animation first develop? I became interested in art when I was younger. I have brittle bone disease, and didn’t usually play football or do a lot of sports when I was at school because of the injury risk; art was something I was good at and could do without getting injured. I went through the standard art education, which was sixth form, then a foundation year in art and design and a degree in fine art.
Of the TV and games industry work you’ve done over the years, which project or piece are you most proud of? TV-wise I’ve enjoyed some of the complex special effects work I’ve done in television, which tended to be for ITV. The special effects work I did on Distant Shores I really enjoyed. I liked the eccentricity of the show and the script, being on set and concluding some of the special effects shots. Another one would be Wire in the Blood – killing somebody with a thousand flies, that was quite nice! In computer games, probably the first Driver game. That was a seminal game in that it was one of
Disability Magazine | AUGUST 2011
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myself. Motion Disabled and All For Claire I think are very mainstream and ‘acceptable’ (hopefully!), and I’m quite happy with that, but I also wanted to do something questioning the idea of assisted suicide and putting the boot on the other foot…
Simon Mckeown is an animator, filmmaker and Reader in Animation and Post Production at Teesside University. Here he tells us about some of his disability-themed work, including his new live action short, The Beaten – a dark, dystopian vision of institutional care in the future…
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The Beaten is very timely in the wake of the recent Winterbourne View expose – where did the idea for the script originally come from?
the first that allowed you to go anywhere and explore a city. It was very innovative and a huge seller – the biggest selling game of 2000 when it came out.
One of your ongoing projects, Motion Disabled is quite large and ambitious – can you tell us more about it? I conceived the project in 2008. It’s an installation, effectively random clips of floating actors based around what they do, showing their everyday physicality and movement via motion capture. I have the view that society in a general sense is very interested in everyone being the same, and there’s the prospect, certainly at the genetic level, that things could get even more ‘samey’ in the future with technology. I don’t like the idea that things should all be the same – I think we should celebrate and enjoy difference, so it’s about that. For instance, one of the people in it is [noted writer, actor and performance artist] Mat Fraser – that physicality might not be around in the future, so it’s an historical record of different disabilities in a true 3D form. It’s
different from a photograph, in that it’s actually their physical signatures.
Where did the initial idea for your short commissioned piece All For Claire come from? The work was being shown on the BBC outdoor screens in December, so it had to be bright, cheerful, very colourful and visual and needed to be for a broad age range. I did dancing lessons at school when I was a child, and the person I usually danced with was called Claire, which is where it all came from. All For Claire was just about having fun really, with animation tools and with putting a disabled female in a strong position, in control of a magical world.
My grandfather was disabled, I’ve got brittle bones and deafness, so I grew up in a family - and a wider community - where a disability was not seen as a separate issue, but just part of everyday life. Over time though, as we’ve seen in the press, disabled people are being seen more as hate figures and being attacked. So it’s a reflection on that wider cultural thing - it’s 2011, and society still seems to think it’s okay to treat disabled people worse than animals in some cases. As a society we have become very tolerant in terms of multiculturalism and so on, but in other respects there’s this enormous gulf with regards to disability and certainly a cultural gulf within our institutions. On Cast Offs, [a comic drama starring an all-disabled cast shown on Channel 4 in 2009] they still felt the need to precede the show at 11pm with a warning that said, ‘Some viewers may find clips in this show upsetting’. What was
Motion Disabled by Simon Mckeown ©2010
upsetting about it? The fact that there was a small person, or somebody with different arms? So the piece reflects a bit of fun, albeit quite dark fun, in getting back at all that.
How did you come to cast Liz Carr in the central role? I knew Liz through a good friend – I’d seen her do her stand-up comedy and also seen several plays that she’d produced. She was a great actor in her plays and stand-up, so she was an obvious and great candidate.
Are you looking to do more live action work in the future? I would, but I’d want to use some of my animation knowledge and do it with a smaller crew in smaller facilities. Having worked on big film sets with 40 people, it’s a harsh environment – I’m full of admiration for these big films because they’re really difficult to do. I enjoy making things in a more robust, smaller fashion if that makes sense, using smaller equipment and simpler production methods. I’ve got some ideas for an art film I’d like to make in 2012, something live action specifically for a gallery in the style of artist like Bill Viola and his live action Timepiece work.
Do you have any other projects in the pipeline that you can tell us about? The next project is called Faces at the moment and is all about
“I don’t like the idea that things should all be the same – I think we should celebrate and enjoy difference” motion capture of disabled faces and voices. It’s part way through and due for completion later this year, probably December/January time. It’s going to be an installation with five actors, who will talk to each other while the heads change shape. It’s very colourful and expressive, questioning ideas of identity, what’s facially and vocally acceptable and playing with that.
What advice would you give to someone looking to break into animation or direction?
What prompted you to switch to live action for The Beaten? Part of my work at the university was setting up a fairly complicated TV studio, so I was very familiar with filming equipment on a technical level, but had never actually directed a live action piece that I’d written
The Beaten stars Liz Carr as the client – or possibly prisoner – of a futuristic ‘care home’
Making a film is hard. Animation is easier in some respects because you can do it more individually, and it’s a very accessible medium – if you can use a computer, you can do good animation. There’s lots of places to
learn; at Teeside University we do fantastic courses; there are lots of other national courses and ones you can do online. With filmmaking it does become more difficult because even at a smaller level it involves some kind of crew and lots of moving around. The main thing for me is that people should become as creative as they can, concentrate on the quality of their ideas and then learn how to express them technically.
Further information All About Claire and The Beaten have been submitted to several major film festivals and will eventually be posted online for viewing by general public. In the meantime, however, Disability readers can watch The Beaten in its entirety by pointing their web browsers at www.vimeo.com/18391008. Please note – the piece contains language and some scenes that are unsuitable for younger viewers. AUGUST 2011 | Disability Magazine
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