Line and Voice

Filmmaker Jim Trainor in conversation with Irene Borger writer and Director, Alpert Awards, September 2010.

IB:

Your animated line seems jittery, nervous, almost childlike, or 'primitive,' carrying what sculptor Eva Hesse called "the mark of the hand." Is that a fair reading?

JT:

Nervous and jittery are just fine to describe it. Tracing one drawing from another creates a build-up of imperfections and the nervous line is an artifact of the process. It's more or less uncontrolled, but I consciously apply that look for metaphoric reasons. Of course tracing is part of conventional cartoon animation technique, but sometimes I trace one drawing from another without attempting to modify it, or create movement. Over a pile of drawings the initial image bends out of shape unpredictably. When you film the drawings this rather passive technique looks purposeful and the forms seem to be breathing, or shifting of their own volition.

IB:

Let's go back for a moment to the metaphors of your animated line.

JT:

Those nervous lines drifting over other images in several of my films suggest passing time, meandering thoughts, or growth and decay. It's a simple technique and I like the open-ended application.

IB:

Would you talk about your writing, your process, and distinctive narrative voice?

JT:

Writing is always the starting point for my films rather than first storyboarding or planning the action. I see the narration as a poem of sorts, with each line a little puzzle to be worked out and each line becomes a separate challenge, keeping me interested through the somewhat laborious process. I make schematic diagrams to help me with the animation, and am always looking for little tricks or devices to help resolve each problem efficiently. Where can I put a cycle in? Where can I repeat some drawings? What's the simplest way to convey an idea?

When I have all the drawings, I shoot them on 16mm film - a medium I continue to adore - in different ways: slower and faster, backwards, forwards and upside down. Then I do a lot of editing, unusual for animation, and probably throw out a third to a half of the footage. When the picture is locked I meet with a sound editor to help me lay in the sound effects and the narration. I don't know how to mix or create sounds and so I always employ a creative person to help me. Joe Miuccio, Mark Gallay, JC Loewe have been my sound editors, and it is great to have another set of ears and eyes.

I’ve used narrators in four of my films, with my own voice only once, for The Bats, and as a cameo in The Presentation Theme. The female narrators are the same woman, my pal Marianne McGinnis, because I love her voice. I choose all my narrators because I like their voices. Actually, my latest film, which I’m planning on shooting next summer, will be wordless.