Daniel Snaddon Unpacks The Snail and the Whale

from Callsheet Africa 2 - 2020

Film Tourism: Leveraging Opportunities

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.

The 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.

How long did it take to finish the production of The Snail and the Whale and what were the challenges you came up against?

The Snail and the Whale was started by my directing partner Max Lange. At the time we didn’t think we were going to do The Snail and the Whale because we were busy preparing

for SEAL Team. But that got pushed out. And then we suddenly had an opportunity to do The Snail and the Whale.

The reason we wanted to do this project especially is because in SEAL Team we have a lot of water, and water is very difficult to do in CGI. In The Snail and the Whale there was quite a lot of water – not as much as in SEAL Team, but we thought if we can do this short film, then we can build a VFX team specifically to tackle this challenge.

The first footage for the first shot – our test drive shot – we started in November or October 2018 and that same shot was only approved around May 2019! It was particularly difficult. Drove us all crazy then, but now it helps us solve a lot of big technical problems.

What would you like the audience to experience when they watch this movie?

I became a father while we were making The Snail and the Whale, and I was really happy when I read the book for the first time. I read it to my son when he was actually still in the womb, and I really had to unpack the message for myself. That’s very subtle in the movie. But it encourages people to not feel overwhelmed by the bigness of life’s problems; you shouldn’t give up.

We heard you may be leaving Triggerfish? Why the move to Sunrise Productions?

I’ve been with Triggerfish since 2012, and I’ve had a wonderful time here and I’m going to continue working with Triggerfish. I’m developing a feature film with them based on a comic book that we kick-started call Kariba. I’m also working for development on some other projects. So I’m not really moving away

from Triggerfish. I’m still very much part of Triggerfish.

But I am going to be moving to Sunrise Productions to work on a very exciting project that I’m definitely not allowed to say anything about yet! But they’re putting together an incredible team and it’s a chance for me to learn from some amazing people.