Ilkla Moor Baht Hat

It is thirty years since I made my first film Ilkla Moor Baht Hat at the Royal College of Art. As I was just reminded, by an organisation researching the films that were shown in The New Contemporaries Exhibition in 1982. 
 

Ilkla Moor Baht Hat 1981 by Emma Calder

They also wanted recollections about the exhibition. Sadly I didn't go to the show, I was too busy working on my next film Madame Potatoe, but, I do have a few bits and pieces connected to the film.

The leaflet I made for the RCA Second Year Show

Half way through my first year there was an opportunity for Graphics and Illustration students to do an animation workshop with the animators (Heros of my childhood) Bob Godfrey (Roobarb, Henry's Cat and many more...) Dick Taylor (Crystal Tips and Alistair and more).

Some drawings I did of Dick Taylor, the day Dick and Bob Godfrey came to introduce their work.

Afterwards, our Graphics tutor said she would tutor us on our storyboards when Bob and Dick weren't around. About eighteen students signed up to do the animation and the plan was to each make a very short film.

Unfortunately this tutor was very hard on the students. She said our ideas wouldn't work for animation, or were a waste of time. She also told me I couldn't draw. I said I was interested in the circular idea of the Yorkshire song and I thought the simple story of the song a good way to start learning animation. I did agree about the bad drawing though, so I drew all the art work really small in the hope that enlarged the drawings would have a more interesting quality.

Here is the original artwork sheet before being blown up on a PMT (Photo Mechanical Transfer) machine, coloured and cut out ready for the paper cut out animation.

 Artwork from Ilkla Moor Baht Hat

Bob and Dick were very encouraging to us all but, this tutor was so negative about my work, I decided to stop working on the film and I disappeared from college for three weeks. Visiting my friend in the Lake District with all the artwork and storyboard. She liked my idea, told me I was giving up too easily and I should listen to Bob and Dick, not a tutor, who probably had some other private agenda.

When I arrived back in the studio at the RCA my desk was covered in funny drawings by Bob Godfrey, who had been searching for me to tutor. He was quite desperate as all the other students had given up their films. Thanks to the tutor. What was her name? 

 

Bob Godfrey's funny drawing of my character from Ilkla Moor Baht Hat

So I carried on making the film, luckily for Bob and Dick, as they thought they were going to be sacked.

The head of the film school Dick Ross, let me have the entie budget set aside for the animation workshop, so I was able to make a proper film shot on 16 mm negative stock, not just a little test as had been originally planned for each student.

  

The artwork and storyboards took about six weeks, We recorded the music in the piano room at the RCA prior to doing the animation, in one take, in one half hour session. The animation and editing took about two weeks. The song was sung and played on the piano by David E Glasson then of Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band (and now playing with Three Bonzos and a Piano).

If I had listened to the tutor, things might have turned out very differently!

Emma Calder's Different Art forms

Collage is the medium for Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book. The illustrations are a mixture of small stickers stuck on, or bits of pencil drawing, watercolour, photographs, scanned images, rubber stamp printing etc...

Like this image for the Stuck section of Moody Days, which was made with rubber stamps and drawings on tiny stickers.  

And this one from the title page. (Every sticker is a different face but it didn't take long too do, just mad sticker frenzy!)

When I was searching through old portfollios for this blog, I came across this drawing I did at five or six years old and I thought it was strickingly similar to the Spots above. Even though I hadn't seen it for over thirty years.

Over my career I have used many different artforms for my animation, instillations and graphic work, from motorised sculptures to jewellery design but, my favourite has always been collage. 

 Grandma's knitted tie and hangman earrings 1978

So for this week and the next few weeks blog, I am going to show you some of my old collage illustrations from the days before Photoshop was invented. These designs show partly the evolution of the sticker style in Moody Days.

One example of my student montage work is this poster for the Royal College of Art M.A Degree show in 1983. 

 

Each character included in the poster was a collage of different students work, from different departments in the college. 

 

I was quite naughty because, before checking with anyone, I found the technician who was printing up photographs of student work for the degree show catalogue, asked him for all the reject prints and also got others out of the bin. 
 

Back in the graphics studio, I cut them up, drew into them, photocopied and then coloured them. 

 Emma Calder in the Graphics Studio at the R.C.A 1983.

 

After I had done the artwork, I tracked down students whose work I had used and got their permission. I accidentally forgot to tell one person and when he saw the printed poster he got very annoyed. I had used a piece of his product design, for the head of one of my characters. He did forgive me luckily. Trouble is, if I had asked everyone in advance, people might  have said no, or grumbled if their work was not included. You have to take chances in life sometimes.

 Emma Calder with Paul Javis and Stuart Jane in the Graphics Studio at the R.C.A 1983