At the Minnesota Narrative Shorts program on April 22 (part of the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival this year), there were a number of stand-out productions (who didn’t love the hilarious “How To Live Better” by Mark Ehling?). But one of the most visually interesting was “King Tales” by Maria Juranic. The one-line description in the program simply said, “A musical fairy tale, played and scored by Minneapolis hip-hop talent,” which is a fair description but leaves out the fact that it includes puppets, stop-motion animation and a kick-ass soundtrack by Cecil Otter.

The short tells the story of a puppet who comes to life, much like Pinnochio, and falls in love (or maybe lust) with a mysterious doll/woman. After he sees her in a shop window, she comes to life but runs away from him, escaping into an alleyway. Suddenly a group of dancers dressed in white appear to battle it out with another group dressed in black (who “control” the beautiful lady). Instead of a rumble, there’s a dance-off in the alley and eventually the puppet-turned-B-boy gets his girl.

The visuals from this short, and the music, kept coming up in my mind, swirling around for days after I saw it. I was driven to the Internet to see if I could find the short online so I could watch it again (I found it here). Then I contacted Juranic, a graduate of Minneapolis College of Art & Design now living in New York, through e-mail and asked her some questions about her film.

Q: How did the short come about; how did you come up with the concept?

Juranic: “King Tales” was a pet project, I wanted to weave fantasy into the real world.  I’m a dreamer and love the idea that playthings and objects live among us, and wanted to create a new, odd world, something that doesn’t resemble daily life.  I’ve been obsessed with this idea since college, where I experimented with some stop-motion and 2D animations.  The project started out with a simple idea, I wanted a doll to come to life, and a great sound-track.

I had my friend, Cecil Otter, make the soundtrack, we pieced it to-gether in a few nights.  So for this project I had the soundtrack first, and as if I wrote it down on paper we wrote the story through the audio.  It was a great experience. I also was a braker in the Twin Cities and learned how animated and charismatic people are when b-boying.  So I took what inspired me in my own life and made a love story.

Q: How did you learn to do the stop motion animation?

Juranic: I learned the principles of stop-motion animation in college.  But I studied most of it on my own time, watched a lot of old animaton movies, and then just took a long breath and went through with it.  I definitely learned a lot from my friend Katie Maren, another local stop-motion animator.  My influences are: Brothers Quay, Jiri Trnka, Jan Svankmejer, Lou Bunin and Ray Harryhausen, to name a few.

Q: Where did you get the puppets you used in the short?

Juranic: I made most of the dolls seen in the video.  For the main doll, I used an Armaverse (Armaverse is a company that makes the skeletal frames for stop-motion animation characters and models) body and molded a head and arms for it with the help of Crist Ballast.  I molded the head to the dancer in the film, and made a lighter cast of it for the Armaverse.  The other dolls were either found or I made as well, like the sewer rat.  He was made from a plastic cup, some fur, and a cat toy with LED lights.

Q: How did you find the dancers?

Juranic:  I knew these guys since I was an active dancer/braker all through out my years in college.  I would have brake practices with most of them and kept in touch since.  It was great because I knew what each person was capable of and how they looked like while dancing (no auditions were necessary). I picked the main b-boy, Travis Johnson, due to his quirky characteristics and playfulness.  He always had a certain playful energy in his dance moves that others didn’t.  He was the perfect face for it as well.  The gypsy dancer, Jeanie Pebbles, I met while go-go dancing in the MPLS area some years ago.  She was a vixen when she danced and I knew right away that she was the girl for the role.  Dancers take great direction, so I knew that they would all understand what I was going for and they trusted me being that I was a friend.

Q: How did you handle costuming?

Juranic: I made Jeanie’s outfit from some purchased items, and the brakers brought their own stuff.  I gave them strict parameters of what I was looking for, and they executed well.  I also knew that two girls had fake afro wigs, from their show Foxy Tann and the Wham Bam Thank You Mams, a burlesque show in Minneapolis.  So things came together through all directions.

Q: How much prep work do you put in before production?

Juranic:  I am a bit of a perfectionist, so things get prepped really well.  Although once I start shooting I do let go if things take a different direction.  My short is very elaborative, so to not waste time it’s only to my advantage to have everything figured out.  The sewer scene alone took about 2-3 months to make and shoot.  But it was a really fun period of creation.

And it shows through in the finished work. You can watch “King Tales” on Juranic’s website, which is also features samples of her music videos and photography.

Tags: 2D animation, b-boy, breakdancing Minneapolis, Cecil Otter, King Tales, Maria Juranic, Minneapolis hip-hop, Minnesota short films, stop motion animation

This post was written by Rebecca Collins, Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 4:11 pm and is filed under Diversionary Tactics, Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.