Meet stop-motion animator Lesley-Anne Rose

Short film fans rejoice! Random Acts, Channel 4’s post-pub short film series celebrating the short form, returns to surprise and delight late-night channel hoppers with another batch of inventive, boundary pushing films. The new series, this year hosted by Canadian stand-up Mae Martin, kicked off last week with Eros Vlahos’ Right Place, Wrong Tim, which begins as a cheesy, innuendo-filled sitcom about a family of clock-makers, and ends in a bloodbath as Asa Butterfield finds he’s too much Tim on his hands. (Take a look at Right Place, Wrong Tim here.)

Last night’s entry was Oxidane, Lesley-Anne Rose’s stop-motion animation about a massive pensioner who’s having trouble with her singing taps and is on a mission to get them fixed. Blending literal kitchen sink realism with wild flights of fancy, Rose’s film has a real sense of place (the setting is based on the actual terrace street she lives on in Newcastle) while also being fiercely original. Rose’s background is in fine art, and she taught herself the art of stop-motion. “I mostly did large sculptures of people and photography,” she tells us ahead of Oxidane’s broadcast on Random Acts. “I just scaled the people down and made them move.”

Asa Butterfield in Right Place, Wrong Tim

In the age of flawless CGI, the jerky imperfections of stop-motion are endlessly appealing. “It's such a strange niche,” Rose says of the technique. “There are loads of great, dark, surreal stop-motion animations out there, like The Box Man by Nirvan Mullick.” She reckons the continued appeal of this traditional style of animation may be that the stop-motion form is inherently disquieting. “I think because the puppets are a bit disturbing in themselves, the stories are free to become more challenging and bizarre,” Rose suggests. “How often do you see a cupcake and a squash making love, like they do in Kirsten Lepore’s animation Sweet Dreams? Also! Coming from a fine art background, I love making all the bits!”

Oxidane’s chief character originated in an earlier, unfinished animation called Happy Ending. “The wife of that story ended up being a massive puppet and reminded me of an installation by Jordan Baseman called Joy on Toast,” says Rose. Oxidane’s protagonist Cordelia is a large, elderly woman. We learn in voiceover that her mother, who was petite and elegant, was always disappointed in her ungainly daughter, and as a result Cordelia has grown up to be uncomfortable in her own skin. Somehow, her singing taps may provide a release. “I am not quite sure where the water elements came from,” says Rose. “I just knew at the end I wanted the character to go from wanting to be tiny to glorying in her size and being this belligerent and proud uber-nana.”

The most pleasing aspect of Oxidane is its hand-crafted aesthetic, which mixes the everyday and the surreal. “I think that comes from my odd childhood,” says Rose. “My dad was in the army, so we lived abroad and I had my summer holidays in Gateshead every year with my auntie Edith and uncle Billy, who are very down-to-earth. They asked me what I was working on recently and I said I had fingers in pies. My uncle Billy replied, ‘We don’t have fingers in pies wor Les, we just have jobs.’”

The character of Cordelia is voiced by Rose’s friend Nicola Maxwell, while the character itself is an amalgamation of several people and ideas. “I wanted a real and regional voice in the animation and Nicola’s voice really brings the character to life and gives her authenticity.” There are some autobiographical elements as well: “The part in the animation about Cordelia’s dad being in the navy is based on a regular conversation I would have with my grandad. My tiny mind was always hungry for all these stories of exotic travels.”

Oxidane is Rose’s second commission with the Channel 4 project – the first was about a young boy with a flat face called The Misfortunes of Spatula Head (see above). The chief appeal, she says, is there’s no creative interference from anyone, but help was on offer when she needed it. “I’ve found opportunities to apply for animation commissions elsewhere pretty skimpy, particularly for work like mine that’s not aimed at a mainstream audience. The second commission worked out really well timing-wise, as I was considering writing live action film scripts in order to keep making films.” Fortunately for us, Rose will be sticking with stop-motion for the foreseeable future. “I have three projects currently on the go, all stop-motion animations, because the world needs more lo-fi handmade bizarreness stabbing its eyeballs, and who am I to refuse?”

We couldn’t agree more. If this "lo-fi handmade bizarreness” sounds appealing, take a look at Oxidane in the player above or on YouTube

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Random Acts is hosted by Mae Martin and is currently airing at midnight on Thursdays on Channel 4 – catch up on past series of Random Acts over at 4OD: channel4.com/programmes/random-acts