27.01.2021

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A little bit of Terry:

General overview of the life and work of Terry Gilliam


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The Biography

Terry Gilliam is one of Britons most famous animators, well know for his for his work as part of the comedy troupe called Monty Python. His style often involved the use of cut out images as well as some of his own drawings which were used to create stop motion puppets (cut-out animation). This post is but a snippet of Terry Gilliam life and works so I implore you to look into his works further in your own time.

Terry Gilliam was born in Minneapolis, USA on the 22nd of November of 1940's and later studied in Occidental College, Los Angeles were he was an editor for the college's magazine fang. He would later would go on to work many freelance jobs for other magazines and adverting companies such as satirical magazine Help!. It was working with help magazine where met up with the python John Cleese.
However the magazine soon folded in 1966 he moved to England to find worked for various Tv shows such as 'Do not adjust your set' and 'we have have ways of making you laugh' (1968) both of which sound more like threats that tv shows but I suppose things were different back then.

He also produced short films as well such as this one called 'Storytime' (1968). This short is a perfect example of Terry's absurdist and crude humour.  
Storytime (1968)

It was around this time when he would work with the other members of the Monty Python group, making animated segments for Monty python's Flying Circus and would help write their first movie 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' (1974). 

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The Animation

Terry Gilliam is most famous method of animation was cut-out animation in which there are good amount of clips showing his work process and methods filmed by the likes of the BBC. 

Cut-out animation is a type of stop-motion animation in which paper cut out are used in place of models or puppets. This method of animation has have some links eastern shadow theatre and Chinese paper cutting (Jianzhi) as Lotte Reiniger created some of the earliest cut-out animations. 

This is copy from YouTube shows how he works on his animations.
 I'll go over the important details but really this basically explains his whole method.


Firstly, images are collected form magazines, newspaper and books. Having to work with the limitations of found objects and images can allows for more creative ideas and stories to be told.

Once, there is an idea for a skit a storyboard board is made showing the story play out. These don't need to be complicated if its just one person working on a project. One these storyboards notes on dialogue, sound effects and the timing are made. 

The images are  then cut out with a basic craft knife and any white edges are coloured in with a felt tip pen.
In case where multiple copies of and image are needed multiple copies of the magazine or newspaper is bought or more likely multiple copies of an image is made using a photocopier. if there's a particular. If certain details or character need to be made They will be hand drawn via airbrushing or felt tip pen on glossy paper possibly to blend in with the other cut outs.

Be careful to take your time when cutting things with a craft knife or scissors. I've personally had one too many ripped pages from when I did college.

Once that's done a will have to create a basic set up by having a camera, felt or some sort of padding, a sheet glass or clear Perspex, lots of tall lights to reduce glare or in this case shadows and a plenty of patience. You can also invest in a camera rostrum or make one yourself which will help keep the camera still but this is not necessarily required.

From there you manually move each piece of paper and then place the Perspex on top to keep things from moving too much, take a shot and rinse and repeat with each photo of every couple of frames. I assume he animates on 2's but it's hard to find anything about how he edited or how many frames for second he filmed on.   

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Possible surrealist influences

As someone who like to indulge in a bit of the fine arts I cannot help but see parallels because Terry's animations and the works of Dadaist and Surrealist artists.

As a brief summary, Dada this that is was an art movement that came about as a result of the confusion, fear and anger bought on by the devastation of WW1. Becoming disillusioned by society they seeked to portray the world through a satirical and nonsensical view whoever it was  dismantling language though nonsense poetry or what defines art through found objects. 
On the other hand, surrealism is, in a sense, an extension of the Dadaism as psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung began to emerge and many people having to cope another World War, people wanted to understand the atrocities we brought upon ourselves. Unlike the Dadaists, surrealists tried to understand humanity and tap into the subconscious mind through the arts.

Both, used Juxtaposition and nonsensical imagery to evoke a response in the viewer which is also a theme commonly seen in Terry Gilliam's animations. 
Not only that but collage was commonly used method by these artists as means of creating a juxtaposition in an image. Some of the most famous pieces of Dada works are collages and one could argue that Gilliam's works are if you were looking at a moving collage.

Of course this isn't to stay that any of this was intentional but considering Gilliam was born around the time WW2 was about to kick off as well studying at a liberal art college it's very likely that he might have grow up with sort of imagery that could have been an influence on his work  


Opened by Customs by Kurt Schwitters (1937–8)


But what does Terry think of his animations?


Well in a BBC four documentary Terry stated,
"Sometimes I really felt the technique was dictating the material I was doing because by staying within that those limited parameters it forced me to deal with certain things in certain ways."

He also goes into detail on how a lot of his work as well as the comedy in Monty Python was in it of itself a form of unrelenting satire of authority and the public aspirations towards being being seen as seriousness and self-centredness. Which for a show that aired between 1969 to 1974 would make sense. I am no historian but I am pretty sure there was a rise in anti-authority sentiments between the 60's and 70's. Just a little.

But it's hard to say for certain for he himself shared similar views. 
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My Own Thoughts

In my opinion, Terry Gilliam is a creative mind, a master of limited animation and the most British American in the animation industry. And I haven't been mentioned his directing and filmmaking career at all!

I am not sure how useful this information will be for me team however there is something that has been on my mind. 
That's that Terry Gilliam has his own website in which you can sign up to able to send emails and the like. Perhaps it might be worth discussing amongst my team if it may be worth signing up and send him a short email? I get we'll just have to see.

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