PROBE

Bill Plympton

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Interview by Alyce Wilson

It's really interesting that's what you describe when you think about animation, because that's what your work looks like. You can almost see your hand in there sketching it.

Right. I like that. I think that's really wonderful.

Painterly would be one way of saying it. It still retains kind of a sketch quality to it. And I think one of the most amazing things about that, when I was first discovering your work through MTV's Liquid Television, was to see something that, when you first see it, looks really fresh and kind of innocent, almost. And then it does amazing things that you would never expect that particular character or that particular scene to do. So there's always that element of surprise, that surreal quality to your work. Has that been something that's been with you from the beginning, when you were drawing in your earliest days? Did you always have that sense for the surreal?

Yes. I mean, I think most of humor is based on surrealism. I think that, whether it's Marx Brothers or Abbott and Costello or Charles Addams in The New Yorker, I think that if an image is unreal, is absurd, is bizarre, then there's that surrealism, and that's what makes people laugh.

Now that really comes through, particularly in your short films. How is the creative process different when you're, say, scripting out a short film, where you're not depending as much on dialogue, typically, and a feature film? How is that process different?

Well, for me the problem with the feature film is that you introduce more characters, and that immediately makes it a lot more complex process. You have to keep all the characters interesting, and you have to keep their stories going. And it's a lot more complex. It really is a much, much more difficult job.

I just finished a new short called Guard Dog. And it's just about a dog and a guy. So that's a lot easier to keep that story straight. But with for Hair High, I had almost 20 characters in the film, and it's really difficult to keep the audience interested in all the characters all the time.

The narrative structure between Guard Dog and Hair High is very different. Guard Dog is almost like telling a joke, really.

It is. It's a simply little joke. And you've got to do more than just tell a joke for a feature film. Unfortunately.

Do you seek advice or help with the script for a feature film?

I do. When I write the script, I show it to my friends and people I respect in the business. And they give me feedback on what works and what doesn't work, and I find that extremely valuable.

Now this particular project, Hair High, this is why I think that you have such a good chance of having this film really taking off for you. It's got so much incredible voice talent.

Yes, I know. I was very happy with that. That was Martha Plimpton's doing. Martha and I are old friends. And I was having drinks with her one night. And I told her about my problems getting distribution for the film, because I had no names involved.

And she said, "Well, I'll call a few of my friends up and see what they can do." And they all were excited about working with Bill Plympton, which I found wonderful. And we got this fantastic cast.

Including Dermot Mulroney, who plays Rod. What a coup!

Yes. He was in About Schmidt, plays the young suitor. And the great scene where he shows his trophy case, and they're all these ribbons that he was a participant. He never won anything. He got a ribbon for participating.

I remember that.

It was a great, great gag. So he was one of them. In fact, he's perfect for Rod.

How early on did you know that you were going to be working with these voice actors? Did you end up changing things to suit them better?

No, that was the first thing. The script was done, and then we showed it to the actors and once they signed on, we basically chose the actors to fit the characters. So we didn't really have to change the script much at all.

However, a couple of the actors did do some improvisation, and we used that in the film just to keep it lively and keep it a little more in character.

How does that work? Do you do you do the artwork first, or do you do the voice recording?

On this film we did the voices first. But I don't always work that way. On I Married a Strange Person, we actually did the artwork first and then had the actors match it, match their voice to the pictures, which is very similar to what the Italians and the Japanese do with their films.

Do you have a preference, or does it just depend on which film you're working on?

Well, obviously, if there's a lot of dialogue in the film, then you should do the dialogue first. If there's not a whole lot of dialogue, and it's not central to the picture, then obviously, you can get away with it later.

Would you say that Hair High is your film that follows most closely the traditional narrative structure?

Well, I don't know about that, using those exact words. I would say, I think, my most successful story. I think the story is really strong. It really builds the characters. It's a very imaginative story. It's a very bizarre story, which I like. And I think it does grab hold of people a lot better than some of my past stories.

And you said this one came from a dream that you had, where you saw the skeletons in the car.

Yes, exactly. In the film it runs maybe five minutes, maybe less. The dream was just skeletons in a car at the bottom of a lake, the current flowing over their hair, and the car starts and the skeletons come alive, start driving the car out of the lake to their prom. And that's where the dream ended.

And that's where it began for you, but it happens near the end of the film.

Yes.

Where else do you get creative ideas?

Well, the streets of New York. I see a lot of weird things, and that sparks a lot of ideas. I watch a lot of movies. And they just come from many different places. It's hard to say.

Well, this movie feels a lot like those teenage drama movies from the '50s.

Right. Yes, actually more influenced by the music. Like a song like "Teen Angel," where it's kind of like a folk tale. It's like an urban myth kind of story. And that's what I want to do, is keep this like one of those old urban myths of the car that drives through the night, or the truck that drives through the night, the truck that ten years ago actually crashed off a bridge and everybody died. But yet the ghost of that truck is still driving around. That kind of feeling was what I wanted for the film.

And those songs never ended happily, did they?

No, they never did. They never did. But Hair High has a happy ending.

It does. A qualified kind of atypical, non-Hollywood happy ending.

That's right.

photos and images used by permission of Bill Plympton from Plymptoons.com