Interview with Frank Prendergast - the Animator

I've been a John Spillane fan for a very long time. One afternoon, the day after a particularly inspiring and uplifting gig in the Lobby Bar my brother and I were discussing the gig, re-living it. We were enthusing about the unique imagery that the songs conjure up, when it hit us that some of the material was just crying out to be animated. We decided there and then to approach John and ask him if he¹d be interested in discussing such a project, and that¹s what we did. We got the opportunity to approach John after a gig in UCC and John was very excited about the idea. As it turned out, a new album was in the pipeline, and the songs we had been discussing between ourselves were due to be released on it, so the timing seemed right and we agreed very quickly that the project should go ahead.

I got an almost childish kick out of being given the privilege of listening to the recorded material for the album in it's 'work-in-progress' stages to identify a suitable song for animating. It was a difficult decision, but after many discussions between ourselves and with John Spillane we settled eventually on 'We're Going Sailing' as the one to run with. John Spillane's music was a joy to work with. Because we have always found his music to be inspiring, the idea for the animation came naturally - though I don¹t know if we could explain why the idea of 'little people' came to us specifically. The romantic nature of the song was the main inspiration, and the mythical and magical quality of the song, I suppose, was the seed from which using the pocket-sized characters grew. To us the song was an interpretation of the magical quality that love gives to otherwise ordinary lives, and our hope was to reflect that in an animation that would be optimistic and joyful.

So the diminutive characters were born and very quickly the rest fell into place as the little ones adventured their way through John Spillane's song. We set the scene with a tree by a stream, the wind then catches a loose leaf and the leaf floats on the wind before fluttering into the water. The male lead enters the scene hitching a ride on a butterfly and begins his adventure when he drops from the air onto the leaf and uses it as his boat. Moments later he is waving to his partner, who has wings of her own, and who flies to him to go sailing with him. They then live all the adventures in the song, passing miniature mermaids singing on the shore, being surrounded by Dolphins the size of minnows who playfully accompany them, even braving the rapids of their own version of roaring water bay, whose hundreds of islands are rocks in a stream.

We feel the song has a nostalgic feel to it, perhaps because it provokes memories, and we have tried to play on that with the style of animation. With the style of the animation we hoped to echo some of the cartoons we watched as children, which we believe has added to the wistful nature of the piece. As we said to John Spillane when discussing the concept, the overall tone of the animation would be one of love and hope, innocence and fulfilment, and the only negative aspect so to speak would be that it is too good to be true, that is only in a mythical land that it can take place.

Now that¹s it¹s complete, we think it¹s brilliant. John Spillane thinks it¹s brilliant. We hope you'll think so too.

Frank