Three Animators and a Baby.

Babies and animators usually don’t go well together. Babies cry at nights, disrupting people’s sleep and if people don’t sleep they don’t animate well.

But sometimes babies born to animators sleep well at nights. Those babies we love. One such baby was born to Bill and Sandrine Plympton. His name is Lucas or, more precisely – Lucas. A young man of a very good behavior. You’ll meet him soon.

But before you meet him, you’ll meet Hisko Hulsing, a Dutch animator who recently premiered his “Junkyard” in Annecy and received the main prize at Ottawa. He is notorious for breaking all 3 Bill Plympton rules of making animated shorts (“makes them 1) short 2) funny 3) cheap”) and still earning Bill Plympton’s admiration.

You’ll also meet Bill Plympton himself. He recently started a Kickstarter campaign for his new animated feature “Cheatin'”  to raise additional funds to make his film as perfect as possible (APAP). I personally am worried about investing too much money in a film that may come out perfect. Remember “Deep Throat”? It was made imperfectly for just $25 000 and is still making millions. There is a moral somewhere there – about ratio between an investment and return. But I think in this case Bill is speaking as an artist – he wants to make a film that finally is just like the film he has in his head. We need to support this!

And then there is me, holding the baby as if it was mine. Sandrine was behind the camera so she couldn’t object.

We talk about funding in Holland, where the money for “Rocks In My Pockets” come from, Bill’s ownership instincts, best diaper changing techniques and we drink beer.

The video is 10 minutes (animators sure like to talk):