CEEA Talks: Phil Parker About CEEA Workshop “I Can Turn Seven Years into 18 Months”

“People seem to remember me for my looks,” says Phil Parker, the content development consultant who assisted in all seven editions of CEE’s Animation Workshop so far. In the UK, he worked for Aardman Animation, the BBC, and C4, among others, but in Lodz, Poland, he is fully dedicated to the 13 participating projects, represented by a producer and an author. Along with the group leaders, he guides them from an initial script idea to a polished treatment. Parker may look like the charming grandfather we all wish for someday, “but the thing is, I’m also the grandfather who’s going to tell you if things don’t work.”

Should we all recognise Phil Parker for his distinguished looks, his impressive expertise, or his many years of contributing to CEE’s Animation Workshop?

Phil Parker: All of the above! And the work for CEEA is very dear to me.

Why is that?

Parker: Originally, this was a Central and Eastern European event, but now it reaches out across the entire continent; I’m getting in touch with people from all over Europe. Sometimes, the focus is on students; at other times, I work with highly professional people, seeking something new. What I bring to the table is my ability to consider ways in which an idea can be narratively transformed into something that resonates with a particular audience. It doesn’t matter how rough or elaborate the idea is; it’s about finding a structure for it, a way of clarifying what the creators actually want to say with their work. And it’s about getting that critical emotional element right. If you don’t get that right, the audience will feel nothing.

In which stage of the process should they call you in?

Parker: Ideally, at the point where they’re fairly sure what they want. I come in on projects from the concept stage all the way through to several drafts of a screenplay. I’m happy to be involved in any one of those stages, as long as I believe that people are committed to getting their idea into production. But they have to put in the work.

Do you sometimes feel tempted to say: ‘Give it to me and I’ll write it for you’?

Parker: Never. I’ve got my own writing projects. The point of this workshop is to enable people to develop material through their knowledge and skills. I can give steers, I can lay out a path of doing it, but they still have to do it.

What impact can you have? How useful can you be?

Parker: When people have a plan for a short, a feature, or a TV series, I can short-circuit the development process. When filmmakers are left on their own with a feature animation, without solid development support, it will take at least seven years to get anywhere near a result. I can turn that into 18 months, depending on how much effort they’re willing to put in. In CEE’s nine-month workshop, we take it from an early treatment stage through to a treatment that is a solid basis for a screenplay. Afterwards, you go and write your script, and it will be a strong script, because the treatment is worked out in detail.

Is your input strictly on the narrative? Or do you take other elements into account, such as technical challenges, budgetary consequences,…

Parker: All of that comes into play. I also help with the wording, the packaging, or the presentation of a project. Writing log lines and synopses is an art form in itself; it requires a certain skill to make it work. I’m involved in all these things because it’s still words and storytelling. Being able to come up with a good log line and a short paragraph that summarises a bigger narrative is a huge joy, but sadly, most people are not very good at it.

You’ve been on several editions of this workshop. Do you see specific trends in terms of content or the way young people approach the industry?

Parker: You can’t make generalisations. People come up with different ideas at different times. For the last two years, we’ve had films about the Ukrainian war experience; five years ago, there was no war in Ukraine. Recently, we’ve had at least three stories about the corrupt destruction of major cities in Eastern Europe. Personal stories are what people tend to make when they’re in film school. But quickly after leaving school, they move on to things that are not just a personal experience. See it as a sort of growth.

How does it feel to realise that only a certain percentage of these projects will ever see the light of day?

Parker: That is inevitable. The European industry is still underfinanced and underdeveloped, and many participating companies are still young. We’re picking up a tradition in Eastern and Central Europe, where if there was an animation industry 40 years ago, it vanished in the 1990s. So, we’re starting almost from scratch again.

You have also worked outside the animation sector. What does it take to be a content development consultant, specifically in animation?

Parker: Narratively, there’s no difference at all. But in terms of the use of imagination and imagery, it’s very different. In animation, you can do far more than you can afford to do in live-action. Animation is a cheaper way of realising massive imagination, and it is more fluid. People will happily accept green characters meeting red characters and walking through a purple wall. You put that on a live-action screen, and everybody’s going: ‘Where did the green character come from? Why wasn’t that a red wall?’ All the wrong questions are being asked, whereas in animation, people go, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ I just had a meeting in which four short stories were being put together, and we discussed which different animation styles and colour palettes would potentially be needed for that. In live-action, it would take truly massive budgets to achieve that level of differentiation.

But most people like to work within certain limitations. The unlimited freedom that animation offers can also be an extra challenge.

Parker: The parameters of the narrative remain, whether for live-action or animation. There’s only so much story you can work with, there’s only so many characters you can use, there’s only so many plot twists you can develop inside a dramatic structure. It’s very much about visualisation, which is always going to be greater in animation than it would be in live-action.

And more labour-intensive.

Parker: Much more labour-intensive. If you go shoot a live-action feature film, you can be done and dusted in six months; maximum two years if you’re doing a full-on action-driven car-chases-and-all piece. But any feature animation takes a minimum of three years.

What about the people around the table? Is it different working with people with an animation background?

Parker: Animators tend to come up from a solitary place, whereas live-action people have to work in a team from day one. Quite often, you’ll meet animators in an early stage of their career who are not used to working closely with others. Some can do it, others can’t. Within the live-action universe, there’s much more scope to take on a job here, take on another one there, and work your way up through the system.

What makes the CEE Animation Workshop unique?

Parker: A nine-month development programme that deals with scriptwriting and producing shorts, TV series, and feature films? There is nothing remotely like it in all of Europe. There are many labs focused on one type of activity. But here, it’s completely integrated. Everybody is on the journey.

I expect ‘giving compliments’ to be a part of your job.

Parker: Anyone who knows me will tell you: I never give out compliments. There are no predictable roles in my workshop. Sometimes it is about letting people explore their own feelings and options, sometimes it is about saying this will not work to achieve what you want. ‘I know you totally think it’s perfect, but it isn’t, and it won’t work.’ The nice thing is that I can articulate the reason why. When I tell you something doesn’t work, I’ll clearly explain why.

You must feel relieved that this was the first professional conversation in a long time that didn’t involve talking about AI.

Parker: I’ve read and watched other people being interviewed about it, but it hasn’t entered my personal space that much.

Who’s smarter, Phil Parker or AI?

Parker: At the moment, Phil Parker would be way out in front. How it will be in five years, we don’t know. But at the moment, I’m still well in the lead.

Gert Hermans