The Composer: Sergio De La Puente (Part One)

Finally we get to the music! Music in film is one of my great passions which is why it was such a pleasure to work with my composer on the film Sergio De La Puente who created an original live orchestral score for the The Ledge End of Phil.

I'm going to depart from the normal blog set-up here to leave you in the hands of the Maestro to tell you about his experience on the film and to let you check out some of Sergio's personal video clips from the live recording sessions. In the clips you can see Sergio's talented collaborators performing to a workprint of the The Ledge End!

LEOP Recording Session pt01 from The Ledge End of Phil on Vimeo.

"It was both a great experience and a challenge for me to tell the story of a man and a bird through the music alone. From the beginning Paul had told me that he wanted to differentiate the world inside the office from city outside musically. So I searched for that balance in the instrumentation, assigning wind instruments to the seagull and strings to Phil. Always joining them with piano. Then ultimately merging the two instrumentations so the two characters "fly" together. For me it is a great honour to work with Cartoon Saloon and talents like Paul."

Sergio De La Puente

LEOP Recording Session pt02 from The Ledge End of Phil on Vimeo.

In the next blogpost I'll be writing about how we came to the final sound of The Ledge End as well as posting more examples of Sergio's beautiful score!

The Phil Chronicles: Jose Antonio Cerro

On “The Ledge end of Phil (from accounting)” I had the luck of working with a character who supports the emotion and evolution of the over all film. I decided to focus on the acting and spent quite alot of time talking with Paul to find the character. The design gave a good idea of how he was going to behave, but we wanted to push it to really make the contrast between the workaholic guy and the one who dreams about freedom clear. Luckily we agreed in every point we discussed, which made me think all directors should always be like Paul Ó Muiris, because he has it all clear in his mind from the very beginning. We spoke alot about characters that already exist as references, as actual actors do.We talked about Phil being a nerd, really shy and not communicative at all. Someone who had his social skills deactivated.

So I started to search for poses that could show those kind of things. Like having his arms and legs as close to his body as possible. But we had to face the fact that Phil would need to stretch his body out to reach the sheet of paper on the windows ledge!! So, difficult but not impossible. We realised he had to be grabbing the window frame or the wall all the time to show his insecurity... Also we had to add a quick recoil to show his hesitation. These are the times where we can feel he is thinking. Where he is trying to solve his problem. Then once he remains out, the change starts. We had to be careful to show his evolution as gradually as possible. At this point, the mental process of the character is essential the audience needs to understand that he's thinking.

This doesn't need a special animation or move, just expressive poses, expressive faces. This is something that Japanese animation does all the time with wonderful results. Most of the time, a strong pose or expression is more than enough to show an emotion and its easier to communicate it if there is no movement at all. In this case the wind blowing through Phil's hair helped to make this even more clear. The character is not moving at all, but his expression tells us what he's thinking, the waving hair clues us not to perceive it as a frozen frame or a mistake, leaving the main attention to the expression, to the real soul. As you can figure out, I am not speaking about animation technique here. I am talking about acting all the time, assuming that the rest of the principles of animation are used somehow and as tool to reach the soul.. This is what this film is all about, in my opinion. About feelings and attitude in life. It is a piece or art, because the meaning is adorned by beautiful designs, color, animation and music. I am sure everyone who will have the chance to watch the film will agree with me!

Jose Antonio Cerro

The Phil Chronicles: Daniel Christensen

"Last Christmas I worked for a short period on a great script called The Ledge End of Phil (from accounting). When first presented to me, it reminded me of Terry Gilliams Brazil and Tim Robbins character in The Hudsucker Proxy. It still does but it is also has its own sweet universe.

I worked with Paul before at Cartoon Saloon and when he asked me if I wanted to storyboard his idea, I think I said yes straight away (did you buy me a pint of Guinness first Paul?) It was the dark days of winter, I had just moved from Ireland back to Denmark and with no apartment of my own yet I sat in my parents kitchen, on a chair no back doctor would recommend, working away on a small laptop with my trusty square Wacom drawing pad feeling a bit like Phil! Luckily I had Skype and Paul was my seagull!

As I remember it now writing this from my parents kitchen, this time only as a visitor though, I think we were on the same page for the project. Paul had many ideas, some already boarded and timed, so it was a matter of getting all the pieces to fit together. A great luxury problem compared to a director with few notions of what he wants. On top of Paul's ideas there was also plenty of room for me to invent gags, especially for the Seagull. We experimented quite a bit with the level of zaniness and just how quirky the seagull could and should be. The play between square guy Phil and the loony Seagull was fun and one of those bits you could keep working on, like a comedian perfecting his act. We skyped, drew pictures and send them back and forth, trying to get to the essence of what Phil and his universe was about.

Seeing the film a whole year later I can honestly and proudly say that Paul took what I handed in, the first draft of the storyboard, tweaked it, cut, it, used it and re imagined some ideas to get his vision through. A first draft is meant to be re-cut and played with and I hope I delivered some good toys for Paul to play with, just in time for Christmas!"

Daniel Dion Christensen