{"id":291794,"date":"2025-06-14T00:19:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T00:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/animation\/interview-with-tess-martin-animated-docs\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T00:19:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T00:19:40","slug":"interview-with-tess-martin-animated-docs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=291794","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Tess Martin \u2013 ANIMATED DOCS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-top:0;padding-bottom:0;margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--20);\">\n<p>In this new episode of <a href=\"https:\/\/shows.acast.com\/animateddocumentary\/episodes\/tess-martin\">the Animated Documentary podcast<\/a>, Carla MacKinnon talks to artist, animator and filmmaker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tessmartinart.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tess Martin<\/a> about her recent animated documentary projects <em>How Now, House? <\/em>(2025) and <em>1976: Search For Life<\/em> (2023), her creative exploration of forms and materials, her love of Clio Barnard\u2019s <em>The Arbour<\/em> (2010), and the impact of new technologies on animated documentary production and commissioning.<\/p>\n<p>Tess Martin\u00a0is a film and visual artist based in Rotterdam, with a background in classical fine art and animation. Her work bridges screen-based animated films and site-specific installations and has been exhibited at leading festivals and galleries, picking up numerous awards. Work can be seen on her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tessmartinart.com\">website<\/a> and on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/tessmartinart\/\">Instagram<\/a>.\u00a0<em>How Now, House?<\/em> will be screening at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheffdocfest.com\/film\/how-now-house\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sheffield DocFest<\/a>\u00a0on June 21st and 22nd.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-acast wp-block-embed-acast\">\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" title=\"Explorations in time and space: an interview with Tess Martin\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/$\/632d8852d65abd0012879cbb\/684ab3a07631e3569ed1efed?#?secret=KC9VQb4uby\" data-secret=\"KC9VQb4uby\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<figure data-carousel-extra=\"{\" blog_id=\"\" class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-4 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" data-attachment-id=\"4383\" src=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/2025\/06\/12\/podcast-episode-interview-with-tess-martin\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"4032,3024\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.2&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;iPhone 16&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1749334349&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;2.2200000286119&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;800&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.033333333333333&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;latitude&quot;:&quot;51.906805555556&quot;,&quot;longitude&quot;:&quot;4.4637694444444&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"HowNowHouse_installation_GalerieLecq\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq.jpg?w=300\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq.jpg?w=1024\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" data-id=\"4383\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4383\" srcset=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq.jpg?w=2048 2048w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq.jpg?w=150 150w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq.jpg?w=300 300w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hownowhouse_installation_galerielecq.jpg?w=768 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_installation_pano.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" data-attachment-id=\"4384\" src=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/2025\/06\/12\/podcast-episode-interview-with-tess-martin\/1976_installation_pano\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_installation_pano.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"5311,2987\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;1.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;iPhone SE (2nd generation)&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1664014164&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;3.99&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;640&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.01&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;latitude&quot;:&quot;51.913411111111&quot;,&quot;longitude&quot;:&quot;4.4462555555556&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"1976_installation_pano\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_installation_pano.jpg?w=300\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_installation_pano.jpg?w=1024\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\" data-id=\"4384\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_installation_pano.jpg?w=1022 1022w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_installation_pano.jpg?w=2045 2045w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_installation_pano.jpg?w=150 150w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_installation_pano.jpg?w=300 300w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_installation_pano.jpg?w=768 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_teacup.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4382\" src=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/2025\/06\/12\/podcast-episode-interview-with-tess-martin\/screenshot\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_teacup.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"2944,1652\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Screenshot&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Screenshot&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Screenshot\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Screenshot&lt;\/p&gt;&#10;\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_teacup.jpg?w=300\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_teacup.jpg?w=1024\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"574\" data-id=\"4382\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4382\" srcset=\"https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_teacup.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_teacup.jpg?w=2046 2046w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_teacup.jpg?w=150 150w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_teacup.jpg?w=300 300w, https:\/\/animateddocs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1976_teacup.jpg?w=768 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<p><em>L-R: installation How Now, House?; installation 1976: Search for Life; film still 1976: Search for Life<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Episode transcript: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM:<\/strong> Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your practice? <\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>Sure. I am an artist filmmaker based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. I\u2019ve been here since 2014. I have a fine art background, I did a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Brighton, which is where I started making experimental animation. And then I did more recently a master of animation at a Dutch art academy called Saint Joost. And I have been making short films, but also installations, and I often do multiple versions of the projects and they develop concurrently. So I may actually first work on an installation version with the knowledge of the short film version in my head and then the short film version and then maybe come back to the installation. It all depends on opportunities for exhibition and funding. So it\u2019s all it\u2019s all a bit a bit of a mixture right now. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM: <\/strong>Could you talk about how, once you have decided what you\u2019re making, what the form of it is, how you would approach those different forms differently?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>I think I think it\u2019s quite straightforward. For example, for this film that I finished a few years ago called 1976: Search For Life, I first started developing the installation version, and that that was only because I was interested in somehow displaying all of the research I had been doing. So I had physical objects. I had these vintage magazines from the 70s that related to the NASA Viking mission. And I had, um, some physical objects from this trip that my family took. And I had a video I had made that was kind of imitating an old school like slideshow movie that you would look at with relatives, like, I kind of kachunk slideshow. So I was trying to figure out how to bring all of this together. And the first natural way of doing that was, like, physically in a room with a soundtrack on headphones, which is something that I have started doing often. So even though it\u2019s an installation, there\u2019s still a very clear time based component because the, the viewer is walking around with these headphones on. Oh yeah, I also had this, like, model of Mars I had made that was rotating. So it was almost like a brainstorming way of figuring out how do they connect? What are people responding to? How do people behave in the space, and what does that say about the work and how they are interpreting what they\u2019re also listening to at the same time? And then I use that opportunity to interview the people on their way out. So this is kind of part of the research phase. And then I can see what stuck with people, what really didn\u2019t stick with people, what was missed, what resonated. And then I started doing more film experiments. So I started playing around with photographs in different ways. And and I started to really focus on frame by frame visual experiments, which kind of replaced that first film that I mentioned, the kind of slideshow film and that became the main film. And then I rethought the installation and realized that a lot of the ideas I had, I was brainstorming with at the beginning, I had incorporated into the film, so I didn\u2019t need, for example, the magazines and the the tiny model of Mars and all these objects. And instead I made an installation with the video as like the focal point, but with a special television cabinet within which the monitor is placed and a special set that is kind of a fake Mars set that people walk into when they are watching the video. So I guess that\u2019s what I mean by like they happen concurrently and and they influence each other so that the installation and the film are both quite different by the end. I hope that answers your question.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM: <\/strong>Absolutely it does. And it kind of leads to another question I had, which is to do with the materials that you use. If looking back over your body of work, there\u2019s such a range of materials from analog 2D running through computers and 3D spaces. How has that evolved in your work and what\u2019s that relationship for you between the materiality of what you\u2019re using, and the themes or the stories that you\u2019re telling?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>Yeah, I mean, it goes back right to the beginning. You know, when I first started playing around with paper cutout animation, and the reason I even got into it at all was because of this puppetry show that I saw at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival between my first and second year on my Bachelor, and it was quite a well-known British puppetry troupe. And they they perform with the puppets on the stage without the puppeteers being hidden. And they\u2019re often performing with the puppet that they are also manipulating. And I was so blown away by this idea of \u2013 the method is on display. The artifice is evident and yet we are still engaged. And in fact it just makes it more interesting. So this idea is what I took back with me, and that relates to the materiality and why I started, I think, using paper. And then for a long time I was using handmade papers, like papers with textures that were backlit, that were very clearly paper, there was no, you know, trying to make a photorealistic, you know, puppet of a human or anything. It was very accessible, cheap material that I could get stuck into very quickly. And for a while I was using these, these papers, and I think I was attracted to the paper because it was very delicate and it was easy to make it look really different depending on the lighting and depending on the layering, so I was. I liked this idea that the material might look like something when you\u2019re looking at it with your eyes, but then in the film it\u2019s quite different because it\u2019s like arranged in a specific way. And so it kind of made it more performative. The ultimate answer is, I think I get bored quite quickly, so I need to stay engaged. And I enjoy experimenting with different techniques and what they can do that a different technique can\u2019t. So each project is kind of different and sometimes it changes like sometimes I start with with one thing and then I\u2019m like, actually, I think it needs to be this or it doesn\u2019t need to be, you know, paint on glass, it\u2019s not required. And actually, you know, something else might be more appropriate. So I try to stay open and I try not to start from like, I want to use this technique. I try to let it be led by the concept first.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM: <\/strong>It\u2019s interesting you mentioned the kind of the artifice of the animation and the image, because that\u2019s something that scholars have talked about in relation to ideas of authenticity and the actual credibility of animated documentary as a form of documentary in documentary. So much of the storytelling decisions are hidden, and increasingly with the kind of post-truth new media ability to construct any kind of an image or any kind of a story that actually, by being transparent with the artifice, you are critically engaging an audience in the fact that what they\u2019re watching isn\u2019t a direct recording of reality, it\u2019s an interpretation of reality.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>Well, yeah, I mean, I that resonates with me for sure. That is something that these, that these techniques do. Is it makes it very clear that this is a manipulated thing. And the interesting thing is when that still leads to truth in a sense. It\u2019s much more interesting to me to have this supposed gap that is being bridged than to just have like a \u201creal live action filming\u201d, which can also be very interesting. And, you know, I completely appreciate that also on a different level. But then I\u2019m focused on like the editing or like, are these people actors or are they subjects that are being interviewed? And some filmmakers play with that very nicely, one of my favorite documentaries of all time is called The Arbor from 2010. And I just love it. I watch it like once every few years because I just find it so inspiring. And I mean, that\u2019s, you know, a live action documentary, experimental documentary. But I just love the way she plays with artifice and the fact that she\u2019s hiring actors to play the characters. So there\u2019s a lot of, like, doubling and layering And the real people are interviewed, but it\u2019s actors who are lip syncing the words. And these types of things, which I think are a great way of using the medium. So they\u2019re really taking advantage of the medium. Like \u2013 what can film do? <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM: <\/strong>And when you are working with real things, or working with that idea of some kind of truth telling, do you have a sense of how you navigate that truth? Finding your story and finding your truth in that that big amorphous thing of reality? <\/p>\n<p><strong>TM: <\/strong><em>In a way, I\u2019m quite lucky that I\u2019m not trying to tell some, like, objective truth story, you know? Most of my work comes from a personal place and is, you know, my interpretation of a situation or of events. And of course I love research and I love all of that. And I am very conscious of how the work purports to represent things in the world, but I don\u2019t claim to be making the end all and be all truth about a certain subject. Nor would I want people to think that I was. I try to to first do a ton of research, to really feel like I\u2019ve gotten a handle on it and like all aspects of it, as much as I think is necessary, and then try to focus on what is my relationship to this topic and how how do my thoughts interpret this idea. And that is truthful. It\u2019s just it\u2019s it\u2019s just my version of it, which I hope, of course, that that is relatable and accessible, but it is always going to be my point of view. For example, this film I just finished about the house that I lived in for a long time. It covers many themes. It\u2019s a 13 minute short. On the one hand, it talks about like literally the history of the house and like the people who lived there and these kind of factual things. And then it also kind of talks more philosophically about theories about time, which of course are there are a few different theories about time and how time works. That\u2019s also not absolute. I was using the work of one particular theoretical physicist called Carlo Rovelli, who whose books I really found accessible. You know, I am not a theoretical physicist. There might be theoretical physicists who watch this film who might be like, aha! But that is just one of the theories. And actually and it\u2019s like, cool, that\u2019s totally cool. That\u2019s I\u2019m using this as a way to talk about something. And I\u2019m not saying that this is, you know, how time works. So similarly for that film, there was a lot of factual information about the previous residents of this house. And also I interviewed my housemates, but at a certain point I chose to hire actors to read the lines that I wrote for them. So I wrote dialogue for the historical residence based on the real facts, you know? So, like, the names are real for the most part, except for a few that I that I thought sounded better. And then there was also kind of a practical reason for this, because of the privacy laws in the Netherlands, I don\u2019t actually know who lived in the house after like 1965 until like 2012 when we moved in. So I also wanted to fill that gap. So I kind of made up a couple residents, who lived there in the 80s and 90s that were kind of based on educated guesses about what we found in the house when we moved in. And I hired actors to reinterpret some of the lines that my housemates had said in our interviews, because I wanted it to be a bit distant, like I just felt it needed to be\u2026 a bit fictionalized, really. And for the film, I think it was appropriate because in this way we get to hear from all of the residents equally, even the ones that that I wouldn\u2019t have been able to interview because they\u2019re no longer with us. So it kind of plays with this idea of time and like, wait, who are these people? And are they real and are they not? And are we listening to them now or, you know, when are we? Um, but I but it was important to me that everything they said was based in fact, because that\u2019s already very interesting, like the the existing history of this house and these people is in and of itself already very fascinating and interesting. And that\u2019s kind of what the film is about, was like this rich tapestry of people\u2019s lives. I don\u2019t need to make that up because that\u2019s already the reality is already interesting enough.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM: <\/strong>So you\u2019ve talked a little bit about time as being a really strong theme in <em>How Now, House?<\/em> It also runs strongly through <em>1976: Search For Life<\/em> and and some of your other work. Is that something that has developed over the course of your work, or was that something you were really interested in from the beginning?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>No, I think it\u2019s a relatively recent theme that I\u2019ve been stuck into for a while now. I think it all started when I started to get into family history research. So it was something that started from a non non-artistic practice place, and then it bled into my practice, and I started really being concerned with history and the past and our relationship to it, and how impossible it is really to truly know what happened or what someone else\u2019s experience was. But we are still trying, we still want to. So this this urge that we have, I think is very interesting and worth highlighting despite its limitations. So the 1976 project started when I found this travel journal that was written by my father during this trip that him and my mother and my eldest sister, who was a baby, took. And so I was fascinated with this moment in my father\u2019s life, when he was really at the beginning of his life as a father. He was going back to Scotland with his mother to try to investigate his roots. So he was kind of at this cross point in his life, which is a very different type of life than my life. And I\u2019m in fact older now than he was at the time of this journal. He he also, coincidentally, happened to be writing about the NASA mission to Mars that was happening that same summer. And this idea that he was already accessing this dialogue between these two things, that he was on a trip and humanity was on its own trip at the same time, and how interesting that was to him. So I was going on also on a trip. So there\u2019s three trips happening in this film. So that that was kind of the start of that project. And then I started to think of different ways to \u201cgo on this trip\u201d towards this moment in the past, in my father\u2019s life and feeling like you are getting as close as possible or or maybe have stepped into kind of a wormhole time situation where where everything is colliding and everything is happening at once, and each trip ends in a kind of bittersweet way. So kind of dealing with that also, and yet moving forward, that\u2019s where that came from. And then at the same time, I was developing a different project, a very, very short film where the theme of time also came into it and also used this photo replacement technique in a different way, kind of more art history related, which was kind of related to letters I had found written by my mother to her mother. And this idea of photo replacement changed for How Now, House? Because in the the first two films, 1976: Search for Life and Still Life with Woman, Tea and Letter it\u2019s literally a photo replacement of an image sequence, right? That comes from a video or originally a millimeter archival footage. So I\u2019m like literally replacing the next image in the sequence, which, you know, animators will understand what that means. But for the house film, I started to realize that I could use a deck of playing cards in the same manner. So this theme of playing cards became kind of a metaphor in that film. And then I could shuffle the frames of the film itself, just like you would shuffle a deck of cards. And how this spoke to the interchangeability of time. And that\u2019s what that project was trying to focus on, was like multiple people\u2019s timelines together in one house. Anything sequential is you could you could make this argument for us somehow playing around with that sequentiality of whatever it is, which is kind of taking animation to its most basic definition. Right? Which I think is actually time. So the theme of time is inherent in any especially frame by frame animation, because what we are doing is we are manipulating time when we are making the film. So in that sense, I guess I\u2019ve always had a theme of time, but this time it\u2019s it\u2019s more literal.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM: <\/strong>I wanted to talk a bit more broadly about animated documentary or the animated nonfiction space. You\u2019ve been working with animated nonfiction now for well over ten years. How have you seen that landscape evolve in terms of either the films that are being made, audiences or commissioning?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>In terms of commissioned stuff it used to be that most of my commissioned work was for other people\u2019s documentaries. So other people are making a documentary, and then they want some animation, they want like five minutes of animation in it, and I haven\u2019t done it in a while, mostly because it\u2019s just too expensive for people. And to be honest, now with with AI, I\u2019m not sure how long this will keep going. You know what I mean? Because a lot of these scrappy productions have other options now to to fill the gap that animation had been filling. So who knows what\u2019ll happen there. And in terms of animated shorts that are that are documentary based, I don\u2019t know, to be honest. I mean, I still see some, some delightful independent short films, at festivals and stuff, but I can\u2019t say that I\u2019ve seen a film like The Arbor recently, that that has completely changed my life or like, redefined to me what documentary could be, or what animated documentary could be.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM:<\/strong> I think there\u2019s often a bit of a gap between what animated documentary could be and what it so often is. A lot of my PhD work was around that, and it was looking at the kind of contexts that the work is made in, the production contexts, distribution, exhibition contexts that animation lives in industrially. And also that documentary lives in industrially. And how it\u2019s very difficult to marry those within the markets in a way that is well supported. Additionally, and probably because of that, there\u2019s maybe some skills gaps in production. But I think that because of that, it can be very difficult for very ambitious work and particularly long form work to get made and to meet its ambition, which I think is why we see such exciting work in a short form space, very rarely scaling up.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>Yeah. That\u2019s true. Yeah. I mean, here in the Netherlands, sometimes there\u2019s a couple of funding schemes that fund interesting work from artistic makers. There was a fund that was a collaboration between the Mondrian Fund, which is the Arts fund, and the Dutch Film Fund, and it was to fund first feature films by artists. And there was a couple kind of interesting films made through this scheme that would not have otherwise ever been made. One of them was by Fiona Tan, and it was it was using archival footage of the Netherlands from the 1920s, juxtaposed with letters written to her by her father in the \u201970s. So it was it was also kind of dealing with time and the past and the incongruity of these two things, which was, yeah, interesting. It was interesting. I don\u2019t know if it really needed to be that long for what it was, but I appreciated it. And you get a lot of funds that are trying to push new technology and new technological developments. So I do sometimes see some kind of creative and interesting VR projects that I\u2019m curious about or even like video game projects, which are cool. You know, it\u2019s it\u2019s not my medium, not right now anyway. But I think that\u2019s great to encourage this new stuff because it\u2019s very interesting and inspiring how some people are using these technologies. But it is always kind of funny to me that the funds are like ultimately trying to fund technological research, like the arts funds are trying to push their country\u2019s edge in the technology fields, which is like, okay, there\u2019s, you know, as someone who does frame by frame animation with basic materials, sometimes it\u2019s like, okay, but just because it\u2019s new doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s\u2026 what about what about the existing techniques.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM:<\/strong> Can you tell us what you are currently working on?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>I\u2019m working currently on a longish short film that is that is not documentary in any way. It\u2019s kind of a science fiction story. Having said that, there\u2019s a lot of real research gone into it because it\u2019s kind of a multiverse story. So there\u2019s a couple different like settings and different timelines, but it\u2019s about an otherworldly creature who is traveling around observing humans and starts to relate to them. It\u2019s like a photo cutout technique. So as opposed to photo replacement, which we were talking about, it\u2019s like literally actor footage that has been cut out. The video is turned into an image sequence at a specific frame rate, and then these are printed and cut out and then animated on the multi-plane. So it\u2019s it\u2019s kind of a weird flat perspective. So that\u2019s that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing now. I\u2019ll be working on it for a while, but I\u2019m also developing the installation version of How Now, House? that I\u2019m going to be displaying in a little tiny space here in Rotterdam that\u2019s in and of itself, a little old bridge watcher kiosk. And then I\u2019m starting to maybe visit some festivals with How Now, House?. The European premiere will be in Sheffield, actually, in an about a month and just trying to plug away, plug away every day.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM: <\/strong>And where can people find your work?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>There\u2019s a lot of stuff on my website and I have a newsletter that I send out maybe every six weeks with updates and stuff. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CM: <\/strong>Thank you so much. It\u2019s been absolutely brilliant talking to you. <\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TM: <\/strong>You\u2019re welcome. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this new episode of the Animated Documentary podcast, Carla MacKinnon talks to artist, animator and filmmaker Tess Martin about her recent animated documentary projects How Now, House? 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