Dir: Joseph Pierce
UK, 2009, 4’40’’
Rotoscoping
Prod: Fifty Nine Productions
A family portrait goes horribly wrong as jealousy and suspicion bubble to the surface under the photographer’s relentless gaze. As the session reaches a disturbing conclusion, it’s clear that this truly will be a day to remember.
Joseph Pierce
Joseph Pierce is an award-winning animator/filmmaker with a background in film, theatre and experimental art. In March 2008, he graduated with an MA in Animation Direction from the National Film and Television School. His graduation film “Stand Up” has been screened at over 20 international film festivals, winning several prizes.
Since graduating, he has worked in London as a freelance animator. His work includes co-directing an animated art piece funded by ARTAFACT for exhibition at the Royal Institution and directing a short film for the Department of Health. He has also created animation for theatre, including “The Minotaur” (Royal Opera House), “War Horse” (National Theatre) and “Dr Atomic” (Met Opera, New York).
He is currently co-writing a live-action feature film script, in development with BBC Films, and is working on a project with Robert Popper for BBC Comedy. Last year, Joseph was selected as one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow.
“A Family Portrait” is an observation on the underlying tensions that constantly threat to disrupt a controlled exterior. It explores the potential effects an explosion of suppressed emotions has on the family unit.
The framework is a nuclear family and the setting, a family portrait session. The forced intimacy in the presence of a stranger offers a rich canvas of simmering hostility, hidden jealousy and niceties squeezed through grated teeth. Watching this family in crisis as their façades gradually collapse makes for vital yet excruciating viewing. The extra layer added by the unerring gaze of the photographer’s camera offers a curious comment on the adage ‘the camera never lies’.
As with Joseph’s previous film – “Stand Up” – the animation provides a narrative that reveals far more than the dialogue can do alone. An atmosphere of intense discomfort descends as characters’ emotions are betrayed in involuntary tics, facial spasms and surreal body contortions. The confines of the photography studio – a unique space where the private and public façades can clash – soon give the innocuous mood an angry and visceral tone.
During the writing process, Joseph carried out extensive research into the history and imagery of infidelity and carnal jealousy. He also studied the changing shape of the family portrait – from the traditional, notoriously staid ‘bookcase’ shots of the past to today’s very contemporary approach of tug-of-wars and piggybacks in striking white studios.
The technique Joseph uses is called rotoscoping which involves shooting the film with actors, as if it were live-action. The film is then edited before each frame is printed out and drawn over in pen and coloured with ink, before being scanned back in. It’s a tough, painstaking process which has taken Joseph four long months. The effect though, is striking. Rotoscoping means that the characters’ physicality and movement are, literally, lifelike - each frame with a detailed hand-drawn aesthetic both expressive and emotive.
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