18 / ANIMATION SHOWCASE
www.thecallsheet.co.za
BEHIND THE SCENES WITH
DANIEL SNADDON Daniel Snaddon, the local director behind the BBC’s latest Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler adaptation, The Snail and the Whale, pulls back the curtain to what lies beneath Triggerfish’s latest collaboration with Magic Light Pictures.
T
he Snail and the Whale premiered to an audience of over 4 million on BBC One on Christmas Day last year. This is the latest to come out of one of the most successful animation collaborations in South Africa to date. Triggerfish have worked with UK-based Magic Light Pictures since their first adaptation, Stick Man in 2015. To date, they’ve done the animation for four other awzrd-winning shorts – Revolting Rhymes, The Highway Rat, Zog and now The Snail and the Whale. Daniel Snaddon,
Director at Triggerfish Animation Studios, takes us behind the scenes to show us what went into putting it together. Firstly, give us the basics – what is The Snail and the Whale all about? The Snail and the Whale is based on a children’s book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, and it is the story about a little snail who wants to see the world. The film’s really about exploring the world, recognising how big and beautiful the world is, but then also starting to feel
your own insignificance in the face of that. And the snail’s journey coming to terms with who she is and what difference can she make in the world. Tell us a bit about your partnership with Magic Light Pictures. Magic Light Pictures first came to us to produce Stick Man, which I co-directed. They took a huge risk in deciding to come to South Africa and set this up with us because at that time, Kumba had already been finished for about a year and a half and the
whole team had gone elsewhere and gotten other jobs. However, we were able to put together a team of animators from across South Africa in different fields who get the chance to really tell stories – which is what we’re all passionate about. It’s been amazing. There are very few projects where you get this much time, we get about a year and a half to make a twenty-minute film. That is very unusual. So I think that we’ve been very fortunate and blessed by this relationship.
