Bird's Eye View

No ordinary fairytale: BEV meets writer, illustrator and filmmaker Jessica Albarn

Jessica Albarn's The Boy in the Oak

Writer, illustrator and filmmaker Jessica Albarn is one of the UK’s hottest  talents. She’s just updated her illustrated book The Boy in the Oak into an animated film, complete with a voiceover by Jude Law and music from Damon Albarn. Birds Eye View spoke to Jessica about The Boy in the Oak and the move from illustrating to animating.

In the garden behind a cottage grows an ancient oak tree that hides a secret. The young boy who lives in the cottage couldn’t care less about the tree and certainly doesn’t know it’s enchanted. But the fairies living in the oak are about to cast a spell that will change his life forever…

As for so many animators (not least Lotte Reiniger, whose pioneering interpretation of Hansel & Gretel is soundtracked by Micachu for Birds Eye View 2011), fairytales are a major source of inspiration for Jessica Albarn. Her childhood holidays were spent in woodland cottages, and the fairytale world is one where she admits to hanging out in her own imagination.

But The Boy in the Oak is no ordinary fairytale. As it unfolds, the boy from the cottage becomes trapped in the tree and the story soon develops into a cautionary tale about nature and the environment for adults and children alike. And it’s by adding a touch of the ‘real world’ that Albarn gives her fantastical work a magic touch. “Humans have created relationships and symbols over thousands of years that identify nature in a certain way”, she says. Her work often combines these symbols with  real world sources of inspiration, from beautifully understated pencil portraits of Alison Goldfrapp with a pair of antlers and Banksy with a bird perched on his shoulder, to images of insects in The Boy in the Oak.

Once again, the roots lie in Albarn’s childhood: “I’ve always been fascinated by insects”, she says before recounting childhood tales of “rescuing” animals from the forest and looking after them; and The Boy in the Oak certainly aims to foster that sense of responsibility and care for nature in its younger readers.

As for the film adaptation, Albarn explains that The Boy in the Oak “always felt filmic when I was writing it, and I knew it was something I’d want to try in animation.” But it’s a slow process, her old-school animation style based on beautifully painstaking detail. Albarn hopes that the short film will be the first step in adapting The Boy in the Oak into a feature film; and with a Jude Law voiceover and music from brother Damon accompanying Albarn’s enchanting tale, interest in a feature-length work is sure to be strong.

Albarn offers similarly encouraging words to other aspiring animators – not least not to be disheartened by the time it takes to get to grips with animation itself. “This has all been very new for me, but that’s not stopped me. You shouldn’t be put off by a lack of resources or similar – it’s amazing what you can do with simple tools and your imagination, so just get out there into the world and beautiful things will come of it!”

For more about Jessica Albarn and news on the release of The Boy in the Oak visit www.jessicaalbarn.co.uk

Birds Eye View’s Opening Night on March 8^th at BFI Southbank includes Lotte Reiniger’s pioneering adaptation of Hansel and Gretel, screened with a new live soundtrack by pop sensation Micachu, plus Oscar-shortlisted The Silence Beneath The Bark, Swedish animation Tord and Tord and Debjani Mukherjee’s Seven Storied House.

And if you’re an inspiring animator itself, check out Adventures in Animation, a workshop at BFI Southbank as part of Birds Eye View 2011.