Showing at this year’s UTS International Animation Festival, The Missing Key is an animated film seven years in the making. In its half-hour running time, it boasts the lushness of Studio Ghibli, the stylistic adventurousness of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, the sophisticated storytelling of Pixar and the sheer imaginative power of Shaun Tan. Sarah Blasko on the soundtrack is a bonus.
The filmis set in a re-imagined Venice of the 1920s, whose inhabitants have mechanical communication devices for heads. It follows young composer Hero Wasabi – a foreign student with a gramophone head – and his musical feud with the villainous Count Telefino.
We see big things in store for the film – so we spoke to director Jonathan Nix about it.
Jonathan, the first thing that hits you in this film is its distinctive aesthetic – how would you describe it?
Shane Ingram, who did all of the 3D work on the film, coined the term ‘rococo animation’ to describe the vivid colour palette and attention to detail. The animation is all drawn by hand, pencil on paper, and all of the textures and background scenes are painted by hand in watercolour.
We were attempting to approach a feature level of quality, and were inspired by the films of Miyazaki and Sylvian Chomet, which both feature hand-drawn animation subtly integrated with CGI. There is a warmth and whimsy that traditional hand-drawn animation has – hopefully some of these qualities can be found in The Missing Key too!
You’ve been working on the film for seven years now…
It was an amazing journey, and I feel extremely fortunate I was able to go on it – and survive it!
The early years were difficult as I was working largely on my own from my small studio at home. Everything changed for the better when we moved to the studio at Clovelly and the team expanded to include the extremely talented animators: Shane Ingram, Brendan Williams, Sharon Sanders and Simon Gruer. We had some very generous support and contributions from incredible talents, including Sarah Blakso and Tim Trumble from Dream Light Imaging.
It was brutal in terms of the hours, and maintaining the inspiration and vision over such an extended period of time.
I am very proud of the end result, and I feel as a team we created something unique, bizarre and beautiful that I hope can be enjoyed more than once.
Your children have grown up with the film – what do they make of it?
My oldest son Cohen was born about two years into production and has seen the film every so slowly come to fruition.
When we finally tested the finished film it was just the two of us in a large cinema eating popcorn at 7am in the morning. He kept whispering scenes I should have added, and singing along to all the songs.
My youngest son Arlo has only seen the first 20 minutes. He had a one-word verdict. “Gup.”
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