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Mermaids are known to have a sexuality so powerful that it is a danger to shipping, yet, till now, their reproductive cycle has been a mystery. At last this 10 minute film shows us the answer.
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"How Mermaids Breed had a long gestation period that began with cloth and binding, arising from a sequence in my earlier stop-frame animation, The Web, which used puppets made out of leather. In it a character binds his knees with cloth to stop them clicking. The binding led me to explore Chinese Foot binding combined with the Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid, wanting to show that when the mermaid swapped her tail for legs every step she took would be like walking on sharp needles, as if her new legs were foot bound.
I explored these ideas for some time, but found that the narrative became too complicated. Eventually, I stripped the story down to a mermaid in search of semen to fertilise her eggs. I liked the idea of her not being prepared to change into human form to procreate. Because of this reluctance to transform, she risks her race dying out.
When struggling with the story I didn’t want to draw a storyboard because I was not sure of the best angle to place myself as the viewer or camera position. I found some white plasticine and remembered a couple of other filmmakers who had invented their own form of storyboard.
So with piece of white plasticine I made some figures and a set and shot still photos with a macro lens; blocking out the action partly to clarify what the action was for myself. If I didn’t like the photos I’d restage it and shoot that. At that stage I didn’t want to get into details, just make and shoot simple white plasticine figures against a blue background."
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- director Joan Ashworth
- writer Joan Ashworth
- producer Martin Greaves
- editor Dominic Wayling
- director of photography Joan Ashworth and Craig Penn
- sound Nigel Holland
- music Nigel Holland
animation Joan Ashworth, Gideon Corby, Craig Penn
lighting & sea Craig Penn
models sets & materials Gideon Corby
3D scanning Sean Varney
sound mix Adrian Rhodes
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© 2002 courtesy of Joan Ashworth and Dazzle Short Film Label
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