Paper Cinema: West

(photo: Paul Blakemore / Mayfest)

A couple of months ago I received one of those emails you always hope for: a message from a producer asking if I’d be interested in working on a project with one of my FAVOURITE theatre companies, Paper Cinema. Of course I promptly agreed, and responded with plenty of superlatives and exclamation marks!

Paper Cinema create “live animation theatre” by filming illustrated puppets and projecting the film onto a cinema screen in real time, all of which is accompanied by a live soundtrack. For a week in May they held a residency in the Bristol Diving School, part of Mayfest. The plan was to make a show about Bristol, in Bristol, and collaborate with artists and musicians from Bristol. Artists were; Catherine Whyte, Dave Bain, Joe Roberts, Lisa Yardley, and Becca Rose; and musicians Will Newsome and Hazel Mills. Plus, Joshua Gaunt from Workshop and Docs was making a mini-documentary about the process (and ended up getting stuck in with some last-minute cutting out!).

It was a week of drawing, filming, and, cutting. The end result was West. A cute melodic-papery-insight into the iconic landmarks and idiosyncrasies of Bristol town. As you can imagine the home-proud-Bristolian audience loved it!

Nic Rawling in the Diving School (photo: Paper Cinema)

(photo: Paper Cinema)

(photo: Paul Blakemore / Mayfest)

(photo: Amelia Wood / Mayfest)

Well, thank you Paper Cinema for having us! Please come back to Bristol soon!