(short version)
Click here for the complete interviewCute Gone Bad: Moments with the Vaccese Twins
Interview by SM Editor Noralil Ryan Fores
To put it frankly, the Vaccese twins are fairly intense, and this aptly defines not only to their wildly imaginative short film The Scritch-Stratch of Busy Little Hands but also their approach to animation, particularly when it comes to—oh, little necessities, say sleeping. "I hardly get any. I know so many filmmakers and artists that can set deadlines for themselves and say, "Okay, it's 3AM, and it's bed time." But, Joy and I work for days on end with no sleep, and we've been that way since we were little. Sleeping is giving in," Noelle says.
Here in a tag team interview, Joy and Noelle bounce off one another fluidly, expressing their thoughts with respectful pauses left in between, both refusing to interrupt the other—unless that is the topic rallies excitement in both and in which case all bets are off, sentences overlapping at rapid pace. At times it's hard to tell their voices apart. They are twins after all.
SM: You've both said that you had spent originally eight months working on the short, and you ended up scraping most of that eight months work except for the basic story. You've also said that you had ten different endings. I was hoping you could tell me what the process was like—it being the first project you were both working on together—knowing that you'd be butting heads a bit as you went along.
NV: At first it didn't seem it was going to be that bad. We were having a lot of fun in the beginning, but I remember one big argument where we both were just getting so frustrated with the idea. It wasn't going the way we wanted it to, and we exploded on each other, then just decided, "Let's toss this whole thing because it's not making either one of us happy." That was just a really big step for the both of us, to be able to say, "Here's 300 drawings. I hate them. I'm throwing them out." It's really hard to do.
JV: Sometimes it's good to see another person's perspective because you kind of get tunnel vision when you're working on your own, and you fall in love with your work. It's hard to part with ideas if you don't have somebody else to look at it for you and tell you what they think.
SM: How would you each describe your aesthetics individually?
NV: I'm highly influenced by Ralph Steadman and Edward Gorey. I just like really dark, creepy styles. I'm not into the fluffy bunny thing—unless they're creepy, fluffy bunnies. That is what I'm drawn to, what I mostly draw in my spare time and comes out in almost every single little short film that I've done.
A huge influence on the both of us is Gerald Scarfe, a cartoonist. His designs and direction for the animation in Pink Floyd's The Wall impacted us so much when we were younger, from the time we first saw our the album cover in our mom's box of old records to actually seeing the animation in the film years later. We saw those characters and just thought they were amazing.
JV: I really like getting detailed with my work, and I like stuff to look really tactile, hand drawn but at the same time have a graphic look to it that's all the same, sort of like—Noelle, can you help me out? I'm forgetting the Gorillaz's animator's name.
NV: Jaime Hewlett.
JV: Like his style for the Gorillaz, all their music videos. It's mixed media. I loved mixed media with animation.
SM: I know you've said that you really liked growing up twins. In another interview, you said that you used to switch classes all the time. There was one time—I can't remember who it was—had a CG class and the other had a Spanish class…
JV: It's even funnier because they knew we were twins, and the class she had ninth period, I had second period, so my teacher had already seen me that day. It was just like, "I can't believe we're getting away with this right now." All the students knew and never said anything.
I remember one time, when we were younger, in fourth grade in Catholic school, we did that for the first time, switching classes and being little bad asses.
NV: Joy, you said "bad assess" in an interview!
JV: Oh, I'm sorry.
SM: No, that's awesome.
We all laugh for a few seconds here.
JV: Well, we thought we were cool, and we met up in the bathroom and went into each other's separate classes when we left the bathroom. I'm hanging out in the class, not saying anything. We'd grown up with these kids since kindergarten, and they knew. They're looking at us, and it's like "Oh, they know," and then trying to be quiet. Then there's something evil about these kids, and they start telling on me. I was just like, "This is not cool!" Then the teacher made us switch, and it sucked. But, it was fun for a minute.
SM: It's a little early in the process to talk about this because this is the first short you've done collaboratively…but, do you see any thematic obsessions that you seem to have without necessarily realizing it when you start a project but by the time you end the project, it's like, "Wow, wait a second."
NV: When I was cutting my reel, I was just like, "Wow, I've either got to always destroy things or do something that's really ugly—but it's kind of cute at the same time. It's like making cute go bad." And, Joy does it too. Actually, one of our teachers, our first animation teacher, was talking about us to another class [that followed ours]… He's was using us as an example, and he said, "The twins always break stuff. They like to destroy things." I remember hearing that, and I never realized that I did it. I thought, "Wow, I guess it's true," and I kind of like that. I'm never going to do anything really cute unless something kills it.
JV: Yeah, we always work with that cute gone bad. Our reels—I'm working on one right now—there are these themes of the surreal, usually a very limited color palate, if any. We like working in black-and-white, I don't know why; it's that film noir look and feel.
SM: So, [you turned the drawings over to] Arthur Metcalf, who did the end editing and AfterEffects. What was it like giving him the scans and seeing what was going to come out from his end?
NV: When we first decided to work with him, I was so happy and so scared at the same time. No one had seen the film yet. Joy and I had already graduated Pratt, and we were just trying to make it to show at the animation show at the end. So, when we changed our idea, our class hadn't even seen it. No one knew this new idea, and I remember thinking, "Oh, my God, Arthur's going to hate it." We're like, "We have to make it make sense."
JV: We were so all over the place. We knew there was a method to our madness, and we'll be able to figure this out. But, if we give it to somebody else, it's going to take so much time telling him what we're trying to say.
NV: The greatest thing is Arthur really understood right away, and he would just go with it.
SM: Last big question: It's out in the world now. Where else are you guys trying to get it out to?
NV: We submitted to about five or six film festivals so far. Woodstock Film Festival, Ottawa—just got our rejection letter from Ottawa today.
SM: Oh, no!
NV: Our first rejection. No, that felt good in a way. It was just like, "I'm really doing this now. I got rejected."
SM: I know now you're both working freelance and on a new short, and I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the new short at all.
NV: The new short is basically just a mess of sketches and ideas that—I stole this term from my animation teacher—are in an "idea morgue" right now, and we're probably just going to pull them out when we're ready. Joy and I haven't even really discussed anything set in stone yet. We're just still recovering from our last film—which has taken too long. Everyday I look at my drawing table, and I'm like, "Alright, make a film."
JV: Well, we know we want to do something with that character, right? …If it's the same character, I don't want it to be a sequel.
NV: More like a comic book kind of feel. You know, "Here's the next issue."
SM: Is there anything I haven't asked that you wanted to add?
JV: Do you want to talk about how much you love making films with me?
NV: I felt so bad for our neighbors.
Joy laughs.
NV: [Here's] a good question that no one's really asked…Actually, it's not a question I've been wanting people to ask but I'm waiting for it, expecting it: Why won't you just work on your own film? When are you going to be an individual?
JV: Oh, I hate that.
NV: No one's asked it really, but I feel like it's there. My answer to that is: I guess I will when I have an idea that's mine, and I don't want anybody else to be part of it. That's when I'll do it, but right now I'm having too much fun.