A Small Timer In The Trade Of Culture

Last week Signe Baumane interviewed Lasse Persson and screened his films at the Gershwin Hotel.

I wasn't planning on writing about it, but the talk and the pieces have stuck with me.

The design is classic cartoon without being cliché. The artist brings his own touch to 50s styling.

He says he tries to keep the "same profile all of the time".



The animation, for one, is super. It's smooth and unusual. The characters move in funny ways that are intrinsic to their personalities and places in the story.

Much of the discussion revolved around the filmmaker's cross-dressing. The filmmaker offered some nice insights regarding animation and identity.

"...having this ability to identify with both the male and female sex my personality fits in both. Or maybe it doesn't fit in any."

"Animation can actually substitute for crossdressing".

"Some animators have made a career of doing female roles, it means they have an affinity for the other sex."

About Last Night

Yesterday afternoon I was telling Christina she should read Signe Baumane's blog, and she countered with a story of how Signe introduced her to PES at Patrick Smith's Christmas party when she was interning at Blend Films.

Signe pulled her over, gushing about what a great job she working on Bill Plympton's "Hair High" and graciously made the introduction.

Anyhow, the point is that Signe is amongst the friendliest, hardest working and (seriously) smartest people in animation.  She gave a presentation of several of her films at The Society of Illustrators last night.

She frames her presentation, like many of her films, with dispassionate talk about sex.

She says: "They say 'sex sells'.  It's not true, sex doesn't sell.  What sells is porn and I don't do porn."

Other pieces of wisdom:

"That's a problem.  I studied philosophy so I can justify whatever shit I make."

On virginity (probably applicable to her films): "You do it fast, or you don't do it at all."

On autobiographic "truth" in her films: "What is the truth?  What is reality? I'm interested in the story."

The screenings concluded with a brief (two or three minutes) excerpt from her current feature length film in production.  She's partially funded it by papier mache sculptures, partially with grants from NYSCA and the Jerome Foundation and is currently creeping towards her goal.

The excerpt demonstrated an integration of papier mache models with draw characters -a little reminiscent of "When the Wind Blows" visually.  There wasn't enough context or development within the sequence to make any statements on narrative.