Russian animator Sergey Merinov opened the first Russian online school of clay animation and was amazed by the geography of applications received. They were sent by people from Moscow to Khabarovsk in Russia, as well as from the USA, Colombia, Finland, and other countries. They all wanted to study the most labor-consuming type of animation.
Clay animation is considered one of the most complex fields that require a high level of excellence. The ingress of computer technology seemed to threaten the existence of the genre despite the brilliant history of local clay animation and the generation that grew up on such animated films as Plasticine Crow and Last Year's Snow Was Falling.
But clay proved to be flexible and soft. The genre came to life through educational videos and films for the little ones. It turned out that clay is better than other materials to encourage children and adults to be creative. Russian clay animation has not stayed aside from the global trend since there are the artists who learned their art from the grandmasters of the genre.
Sergey Merinov is the art director of Russia's only clay animation studio - "Plastilin". He has shot many clay masterpieces for such popular series as Mountain of Gems, Multi-Russia, Plastilinki, and others. Sergey told the Russkiy Mir about the demand for "clay" skills worldwide and how modern computer technologies helped the hand-made cartoon genre to develop.
Clay for children and adults
- How did you get into clay animation? Was it by accident or deliberately?
– I came to the Pilot Studio being impressed by Alexander Tatarsky's great films, both claymation ones, and cartoons. I was trained at the Pilot and worked as a cartoon animator for 12 years. When I started studying the directing craft, I thought about my own directing style. I decided that it would be great to make something out of clay because at that time, in the early 2000s, there was no claymation in the Pilot.
– Why so?
– It's a very complex technique. Furthermore, it's not scalable, and it was believed to be suitable only for single auteur projects. I thought that modern technology could help make clay animation better, faster, and more interesting. I began to experiment. At first, I illustrated books - modeled items, and shot them with my digital camera. And then I made my diploma film based on one of Yuri Entin's books in the claymation genre. Tatarsky saw it and offered to make clay openings for The Gem Mountain. Then films and other projects followed, and as a result, I've been working with clay for about 20 years now.
– What makes the clay technique more complex than the puppet or drawing ones?
– Any technique is complex. In the past, the issue with clay animation was that a large team could not work on the films, as it was the case with other techniques. Up to a hundred people could work on a cartoon because the tasks are easily shared among the participants. And that's not the case with clay because the work has to be performed by one person since it is not standardized, and not everyone is good at it. For example, Last Year's Snow Was Falling was made by no more than five people. All the layers were filmed together: one glass was with the snow on it, another had the background moving, and the third featured the character. Only a very experienced cartoonist could do this.
When I came to claymation, I thought that modern technology would make it possible to break this work into tasks. We started shooting the layers one by one on "chroma-key" (the technology that makes it possible to combine images in one composition - S.V.). The computer, unlike film, enabled us to take ten shots and see them right away without sending the film for development. You can take a shot, watch it, and if you do not like it, just retake it right away. It is very convenient. It became possible to break the work into tasks and to involve less experienced animators - it is easier to work and easier to correct. Before, everything used to be filmed on one cartoon station. But I have made ten of them.
We industrialized claymation and created a full-fledged animation trend.
They made illuminations and films for various projects, for Soyuzmultfilm, Disney, and other studios.
Photo by Victor Goryachev
“We weren't prepared for international students to come”
- You've made Smeshariki in clay too, haven't you?
– Yes, there have been a lot of films. It turned out that this technique is great not only for cartoons but also for creating music videos. Clay is also good for various educational projects because the technique is very illustrative. Children listen to something, and it is immediately modelled and shown, and then molded into something else, which is discussed next. It seems to be a manual technique, but we managed to involve a lot of people and teach them clay animation. I have a large team, and most of its members are females. This technique is more appealing to girls due to their neatness, accuracy, and craftsmanship, so to speak.
– Do they work in the same premises or in different cities and countries, as it is often the case in contemporary computer animation?
– We used to work altogether but some of us started working from home due to the pandemic, so animation stations were taken to them. When we work on a big-scale project, we engage people from other cities. For example, we had an order for Perm, and we trained local animators, and now we have our own studio there. Teaching is another part of my professional activity, I've been teaching animation for about 20 years.
– Was the establishment of your online school related to the pandemic and general trend to work from home?
– There used to be the problem that a school or studio could only be opened in big cities. And what if a person doesn't want or can't leave his or her small town? I traveled around the country a lot, and I was constantly asked when animation education would be available. As to Perm, we taught online because all the teachers were from Moscow. And we managed to train a whole team in six months.
We realized that online learning is a real thing, and people can be taught quickly, yet very meticulously. Furthermore, there are also platforms that are more convenient for teaching animation than live lessons. And some of them are being used even in offline schools. What do I mean by that? Let's say a student makes a little animation exercise and sends it to a teacher. And the teacher can correct each frame with his or her own hand, write comments, and send it to the student.
– The very first enrollment of your animation school turned out to be international - people from all over the world knocked on your door. Were you surprised?
– The enrollment is over, and classes have commenced. But here's the problem: when the class starts, it is 2:a.m. for a girl from Chita, and it is an afternoon for a student from Mexico. This is the geography issue. There are students from Washington, Tallinn, Khabarovsk. Most of the students are Russian-speaking. We also received applications from foreigners - from Colombia, Lebanon. But so far we haven't been able to help them because we cannot teach in other languages. We were absolutely unprepared for foreign applications. Now we are thinking about teaching a course in English.
– Why do contemporary people turn to clay animation?
– Teachers of children's animation studios come to us to improve their skills. There are also people who draw and want to try their hand in animation. There are a lot of professional people who clearly understand why they need it. For example, we have a unique woman who has mastered animation herself. She makes absolutely wonderful films with the patients at the psychoneurological dispensary. She came to us to develop further. A student from Mexico is a wonderful and successful illustrator who teaches art at the university. She wants to learn claymation animation so she can share it with her students.
Outside the mainstream
– As to clay animation, few names of directors sound familiar... But can it become mainstream?
– It has always been a lonely mission, and even now there is only one studio that focuses on claymation. And in global terms, no studio can be remembered except for the British one - Aardman. Clay is used in auteur cinema, but, as a rule, directors make one or two films with clay, and they try other techniques. Nevertheless, children's studios do make clay cartoons all over the place because this is a suitable technology for working with children. You molded the puppet - and move, no need to draw for each and every frame or learn complex 3D software. Now a cartoon can be shot on a phone or tablet, there are simple programs.
– Full-length clay films are released, albeit infrequently.
– As an industry, claymation is not in the mainstream at all. As of now, all the producers still say they are not ready to get involved with a full clay meter because they are not sure whether the audience will go to watch the clay movie. They are not convinced by the success of Shaun the Sheep and the Wallace and Gromit films. But, thank goodness, this distrust has been broken by making clay series. There are quite a few of them. TV channels are happy to broadcast them. Children actively watch them on YouTube as well. I know that the Plastilinki series that we made for Soyuzmultfilm was sold to China. Our Mountain of Gems has been translated into many languages, and Russian Language with Smeshariki was specially made for foreign children to learn. There are versions in English, Spanish, Chinese, even Vietnamese, and etc.
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