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TURNING TO GOD
Liam Iandoli on his animation debut
with a little help from a famous Aardman friend
T he risqué sub- there was still so much
ject matter was surely enough to make Nick Park’s famous bow tie spin off his collar
entirely. But this did not stop Aardman’s award winning director from offering valuable words of advice to National Film & Television School gradu- ate Liam Iandoli.
“He visited our set,”
Iandoli explains, “and, in
fact, Aardman backed us
quite a lot on this project.
They were very keen for us to use what equipment we needed, and gave us lots of advice.”
The 29-year-old DP lit the stop motion animated For The Love Of God with a fellow NFTS student, director Joe Tucker. The very funny 11-minute story tells of an uncomfortable trian- gle formed between the put-upon Graham, his domineering mother and the love of God they share – though in markedly different ways.
Voiced by Steve Coogan, Julia Davis and Sir Ian McKellen, it’s set to play at Cannes this year. Shot on the Super F-125T 8532, this was Iandoli’s first attempt at stop motion animation.
“I had never even been on an ani- mation set before,” he adds, “so had
to adapt everything I’d learned and scale it down accordingly: 18ks became 650w, 10ks became 300w mizars and 150w peppers were bounced into tiny make-up mirrors to give delicate eye lights. It all became very exciting and I started to experi- ment with the direction of light, colour, intensity and quality at an incredibly fast rate without the need for any crew.”
The invention comes, in part, from a background in stills photography. Iandoli turned this interest into a degree in film and video at the Kent Institute of Art & Design before accepting the David Lean Foundation Scholarship to study for his MA at the NFTS. A key mentor there was Brian Tufano BSC, who gave
Iandoli the chance to work on a film before his course even began.
“Just as I received confirmation I’d got onto the film school, I got a phone call from Brian,” he recalls, “who asked me if I wanted to work in the lighting department on Kidulthood. There was only two of us, Rob Pye the gaffer and me as the spark. That was a massive learning curve before the course started, because I was able to watch Brian work on a low budget fea- ture with the most spare, essential lighting kit you’ve ever seen.”
If there is a degree of awe in his voice, it’s because Liam Iandoli is not one of those film school graduates who finishes the course and thinks he knows it all. “I came out feeling that
to learn,” he says, hav- ing graduated in 2006. Now he is looking for valuable experience working with established crews. That is if his own career doesn’t intrude, as another recent collab- oration with Tucker may well take him in another direction again.
“Joe had a back- ground in music before coming to the school,” he explains. “We’d always talk about music videos and different
ideas and while we were shooting For The Love Of God, and before we’d even finished the animation Joe man- aged to pitch to shoot one of the Rudebox shorts for Robbie Williams.
“He had come up with a really interesting idea, a human boombox with a Robbie Williams doll on his shoulder, for a cover version of Kiss Me by Stephen ‘Tin Tin’ Duffy. We shot that on 16mm Eterna 8663, and it came out really well.” The same might be said for Liam Iandoli’s fledgling career. ■ ANWAR BRETT
For The Love Of God was originated on 35mm Fujicolor Super F-125T 8532
Photo main: a scene from For The Love Of God; above l-r: Joe Tucker and Liam Iandoli check playback; Steadicam Mike Scott on location; Iandoli with Nick Park and Joe Tucker
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