CEEA Talks: Marcin Podolec about POTATOES

“Comics is where it all started”

Even with a great belief in animation as the medium par excellence to stimulate imagination, it shows some guts to call your animation studio Yellow Tapir Films, and pick POTATOES as a film title. Polish animation director Marcin Podolec likes to make idiosyncratic choices, also artistically. POTATOES is a charming proof of this. A film that looks so modest that it’s easy to overlook it, but then you would miss out on something…

The future is full of possibilities, but the more his father presents them to him, the more the young boy feels constrained and suffocated. With simple lines in black and white, Marcin Podolec shows how a warm bond between father and son risks being suppressed by sky-high expectations. (watch trailer)

What was your father’s profession?
Marcin Podolec: My father is a lawyer.

POTATOES tells about fathers passing on their dreams to their children.
Podolec: This film is not an animated documentary about my life, but it draws from real-life events. I look very similar to myself in the film and so does my father. But it’s not my story. My father has always been very supportive of me. When I was in high school, every two weeks we drove 60 kilometres to the city where I used to take ‘comic book classes’. He also encouraged me to apply to the film school in Łódź, which is how I started working with animation.

He didn’t push you like the one in the film does?
Podolec: I come from a family of doctors and lawyers. My grandfather was a lawyer, and therefore my father became one too. He suffered a lot from the pressure that was upon him in his career choices, so he wanted to leave all doors open for me to decide for myself.

There is no mother in the film.
Podolec: Because it is a father-son story that I wanted to keep as simple as possible. The parental character could have been a mother as well, but since I have a strong bond with my father, it was easy to imagine it this way. But at the end of the story, a young daughter appears, with a very different character than her father and grandfather. She is the refreshing element.

What’s the story behind the story?
Podolec: It started with one sentence that I read in a book. A father and son are passing through a wealthy neighbourhood when the father says: “Son, one day you’ll be living here.” That was a shock – I have heard this sentence so often as a child. Parents’ expectations can put a positive pressure on a child regarding their unfulfilled dreams. But if you’re rooting too much for your child, it feels like a golden cage of expectations that you can never fulfil. Because even a good thing, you can always improve. While you can just be happy with what you have, who you are, or what you do.

Most of the film is in black and white.
Podolec: Yet there is some colour in the end, strongly connected to the story. The style is a reference to PEANUTS and Charlie Brown. I admire the PEANUTS cartoons; even when the stories are funny, there is always a sentimental layer to which I can relate.

Comic books have influenced your style of drawing?
Podolec: Definitely. Comic books are the easiest and cheapest way to produce an animated story without sound or movement. Comics is where it all started and it still feels like a natural medium to me. It’s easy to transfer some of its features onto animation. One of my first animations, a documentary film called DOKUMENT (2015) had no dialogues in sound, but on the screen, in speech bubbles that I had been drawing.

The way you draw your lines is not very steady.
Podolec: I use this shaky, ‘boiling’ line (like the surface of boiling water) to connect all elements together and make the editing more smoothly: I’m not cutting the film but making one picture transform into another, a common method when aiming for a more fluent result.

What other technical specificities can you share?
Podolec: I worked with 2D digital animation, animated frame by frame in Photoshop and edited in After Effects. There was no post-production – I wanted the film to be as simple as possible. When sound designer Kacper Zamarło sent his first version, I asked him to remove one third of the effects because the sound was putting the simple visuals in the shadows.

Even with this boiling line, some close-ups are striking. Like the father’s face giving away a lot about what is going on inside his head.
Podolec: Working on comics for so long, I must have refined my skills. Since the main characters are based upon my father and me, I know them through and through. Which makes it easier to find ‘truth’ in their faces.

Sometimes the eyes are nothing more than two stripes, but yet you see tears welling up.
Podolec: My previous film INSEKT was half an hour long, was very detailed and I spent four years working on it. I was pretty tired afterwards. Now I decided to make a very simple film. My main motif was: less is more. When making sketches, often your first attempt is the best. When trying to refine it, often it becomes less interesting. That was my method for this film.

Also for the music.
Podolec: Music and sound are extremely simple. I was working with two musicians, Natalia and Krzysiek. While Natalia watched the film, she was improvising on the piano, and Krzysiek was just repeating the same melodies after her. That was it. In three hours we were done.

You didn’t need a producer nor a budget!
Podolec: I worked with an extremely small team. Actually the idea was to launch myself again as an animator. Since I started my Yellow Tapir Films animation studio, there is always other work to do. I became more of a producer and less of an animator. This film brought me back to animation. Since I made a film about my father 10 years ago, I could see now how I’ve changed and how our relationship has evolved. My partner and producer Wiktoria suggested POTATOES as a title; it makes you curious and you want to know what the story is about. Although you have to wait for a long time before the film gives away its secret.

What about Polish animation these days?
Podolec: We are recognised worldwide for our short animations. Unlike in other Eastern nations, where the tradition collapsed after the state studios closed their doors, in Poland we had a more continuous flow. Our grandmasters, like Piotr Dumała, are teaching the younger generations. The Polish animation community is very supportive, we like working together. I guess the animation departments are the most successful of all Polish film schools, bringing home awards from the biggest festivals.

You too are involved with educating young animators.
Podolec: I am a lecturer at the Łódź Film School, specialised in animation. I consider our school a truly inspiring place, and I’m often amazed by the talent of our students. The school’s approach is rather artistic by nature, but nowadays we provide our students more and more with practical skills. They take part in workshops and international exchanges and every year, each student delivers his / her own film. By the time you graduate, you’re basically an experienced director.

What are your personal focus points that you want to pass on to your students?
Podolec: My classes should make students familiar with a professional work environment and gives them an insight into the international animation market. I explain how film institutions work, how to apply for financing, and how to promote a film. We discuss production pipelines, and speak about how to improve your showreels. Students pick up a lot of practical information directly from the experts that I invite. I believe this helps them to make genuine connections with fellow artists and producers.

Does the Polish animation community feels supported by a national policy?
Podolec: We are better organised nowadays, with a society of Polish animation producers, a society of young directors, and organisations like the Kraków Film Foundation promoting our work. With the feature animation DIPLODOCUS (by Wojtek Wawszczyk) opening in Polish theatres, maybe also on a mainstream level we might see a breakthrough.

Interview conducted by Gert Hermans for CEE Animation.