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PAINTING A PICTURE WITH PIONEER ANIMATOR

  14 Jun 2017

An accomplished artist, animator and director, Joan Gratz pioneered the animation technique known as clay painting. Working with bits of clay, she blends colours and etches fine lines to create a seamless flow of images.

Joan developed her animated painting as an architecture student, then shifted from paint to clay from 1977 onwards. During that time her work included design and animation for Academy Awards® Nominees Return to Oz, Rip Van Winkle and The Creation.

In 1992 Joan's creation Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase won the Academy Award® for Best Short Film and became one of the most iconic and studied animated films of all time. A guest of this year’s Melbourne International Animation Festival, Film Victoria chatted to Joan about her ground breaking techniques, her professional journey and advices for the new generation of animators. 

As a pioneer in clay painting, how did you discover this technique and develop your skills in the area?  

While an architecture student I began painting on canvas and filming the change, painting and shooting. The end product was not the canvas but the film recording the painting process. I was adding the dimension of movement over time to painting which is animation, although at the time these painted films were more of a game than a career path.

Was your transition to animated painting something that happened accidently or was it your intention to develop and explore this technique?

Although I grew up in Burbank, California which is only blocks from Disney Studios, I had no interest in animation. A Disney film requires many people working together with limited opportunity for individual expression. The style of animation I developed precluded group effort. It's like a novel or a painting which requires a single voice.

Do you take a similar approach when working on commercial/personal projects or is it a completely different mind-set?

The technical process of making a commercial or a personal short film is very similar. My commercial work is more planned and more lucrative, since ad agencies are often the patron of the independent filmmaker. They will sometimes design commercials based on short films. My United Airlines commercial was based on The Creation, while Coke and Wishbone Salad Dressing were based on Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase.      

Following your Academy Award win for what is one of the most iconic and studied animated films of all time, did you feel any pressure from this spotlight?  

The biggest pressure from winning an Oscar is that of people wanting to borrow your screeners.

Your more recent work moves into the digital realm working in photography and manipulation software – how has this changed the way that you work?

My process of animating directly before the camera has not changed. I now shoot digitally with a Nikon rather a 35mm Mitchell film camera, and edit sound and picture in After Effects rather than a film lab and post production house. The new technologies have made the process so much less expensive and allowed for more immediate gratification.

Any words of advice for Australia’s upcoming animators?

Be original, keep it interesting and if not keep it short.


Joan Gratz will be a guest of Melbourne International Animation Festival 2017. A retrospective screening, followed by a Q&A session, will take place at 3pm Sunday 25 June.