Your Full Name
Harriet Macdonald
Tell us about yourself and what you do
I’m a 23 year old Australian filmmaker/animator/freelance journalist now working in the UK. I love telling stories and creating animations out of hundreds of photocopies and a bedroom lamp.
If you have a bachelor degree/education background; what is it?
I was going to Major in Graphic Design and had never touched a camcorder before I started uni when I was 17 (I actually had to find out how to turn it on!), but chance events meant that the woman teaching Graphic Design was so cruel to the class I ended up majoring in Electronic Media which had been a randomly picked minor!
Where are you located?
Oxfordshire, UK
As a creative person in several different art forms, do you consider yourself as one particular artist in a specific discipline over the others? Which would that be?
I don’t really have a particular one, I personally like to explore them all and take breaks from one and do another; like with animating, sometimes you just need to step back and abandon it for a bit to do writing (I’ve written about the real Zoolanders to female DJs and musician’s first jobs such as working in fish factories- which always makes you feel better when you’re bored at work!). But whatever I do I want to capture people’s imagination and transport them for those few minutes.
Tell us about your unique film-making technique (your most favorite one)? What are usually the challenges and how you go around it?
The first thing I directed @ 17 was an animation, the main reason for this was I was too shy to ask anyone to act for me! My idea was too Hollywood inspired with “sweeping shot” & “shot from above” which I soon realised would be impossible to create.
But in sculpture there was a corner full of junk for people to make sculptures with- mainly rusty things that would give you tetanus just by looking at them, but among them I found a pile of torn up glossy American magazines and in one stills from an animation by animator Osbert Parker, made up of old 1940s cutouts. But he was almost like an invisible man as hours online found nothing.
But those 4 stills were a huge inspiration and I decided to experiment with animation. We were basically given the computers and cameras and left to our own devices- so everything I learnt by trail and a lot of error. I soon found out that just by moving a lamp every frame and angling it so that the flat cut-out threw up long shadows, could create a lot of atmosphere. I like creating animations out of what is lying around (partly because it is usually a no-budget short); creating depth in the animation by propping up the flat objects with blu-tac!
—–
Ondine from Harriet Macdonald on Vimeo.
—–
What would be your strangest assignment you have done? Why so?
Probably a fashion/music video for a London fashion designer for Milan Fashion Week. I collaborated with my sister Stella who is also a filmmaker. The idea was to animate the fashion designer and film the fashion models in an animated stage, intercut with animations of the crowd made up of Surrealist artists which the collection was inspired by.
We had a day to shoot it in, so we turned up on the Saturday, the lights weren’t there, the models were late… and most of the time was spent placating tiffs. Even with all that, the shoot went well until we go a phone call the next day asking us to re-shoot the whole collection, in the end one of the amusing, slim, models was replaced as she was “fat” (in comparison we must have been obese!).
It was very stressful with Milan coming up and trying to get the whole thing shot again, while waiting for stylists and makeup artists so we couldn’t get started until the afternoon… it was a very, very long day….
How do you promote yourself?
Basically by putting my hand up for anything, I send my showreel and links around to bands and various other people and sometimes you’re lucky and one of those thousands of emails pays off.
—–
Brokenkites – Touch by Harriet Macdonald from brokenkites on Vimeo.
—–
Who is the person you look up to in this industry? Why so?
My biggest animation hero is Osbert Parker, without him I wouldn’t have been inspired to animate; Stella and I managed to track him down eventually and emailed him about how we’d discovered his work while we were in 1st year E-media, it was nice to discuss animating outside of the classroom with someone who was actually doing it doing it especially when our lecturers claimed that it was a well known fact that girls weren’t any good at 3D, Osbert very nicely told us that was rubbish!
How does the global economic recession affecting the industry, or the least affecting your business/ work/project?
It’s very much a love and not much money job if you work freelance, and there are those days when you think to yourself “why couldn’t I have been a Doctor!”.
A lot of people use it as an excuse and if they pay would rather get someone established. Because I’m fairly new in the industry and I didn’t get to experience the pre- recession heights, but maybe it’s going to challenge people to create things out of nothing and like the recessions before create new and exciting ideas.
What’s one thing you wish you knew when beginning this passion?
remember when filming double check you’re camcorder is actually recording…
A great story-teller is…..
never done
Name 3 your favorite books.
Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
Seabiscuit Laura Hillenbrand
Boys in the Island Christopher Koch
If you have online portfolio (website/awards/credits/client’s showcase), what is the URL?
http://vimeo.com/harrietmacdonald
http://www.pool.org.au/users/harriet_macdonald
—–
An Unmarked Grave from Harriet Macdonald on Vimeo.
—–
[.]
