Edmonton couple commits to year-long claymation project
'We really started this thing just to create,' said Jessie McPhee
The couple that clays together, stays together.
It's an adage, Julia Grochowski and Jessie McPhee will be testing out in 2016.
The Edmonton couple have committed to a year-long claymation creation project.
They will be churning out one clay-animation film each week, for the next year.
"We really started this thing just to create, because what would be doing otherwise, watching tv?" said McPhee during a Tuesday morning interview on Edmonton AM.
"Now we're creating stories and playing with clay, and we're doing that every week instead, and that has really been worth it."
They've made 14 of the shorts since they committed to the project back in November.
"They can take any form," said McPhee who acknowledges that the minute-or-so-long clips are pretty kitsch.
"We've had a satellite drifting through space, we've had a mermaid fighting a skeleton, a dinosaur eating a cupcake. Any ideas we have, we don't really have time to say 'no' to it, so we just do it."
Grochowski, a freelance filmmaker, says the project was inspired by her time teaching at a children's camp this past summer.
"There were workshops on different types of filmmaking; live action, paper and stop-motion and claymation as well. And I was just tickled pink by the easiness and infinite possibilities that you have with clay."
At the end of the year, Grochowski and McPhee hope to compile their videos into a full length claymation film for a screening in front of friends, family and members of the public.
Like so many creative types McPhee says they both struggle with deadlines. He hopes working on the project will help mould them into shape.
"It's just something we can look back on and say we committed to this deadline, and we delivered," said McPhee. "I think it will be inspiring in that way."
The videos are available on the couple's blog 52 Weeks of Clay.