THE ANIMATED LIFE FOR ME

The brothers Pecknold craft a sea-faring tale

By Jacob Tennery

In a two-dimensional animation style marked by rich clouds and deep, rusty grey-greens, The Strange Hunger is at once melancholy and innocent, both sea shanty and fairy tale. George, the story’s luckless fisherman, rows over dark waves that harbor the catch he desires–and the trials ahead he must endure. The fisherman is a weathered yet fragile hero, yearning for contact and collaboration, seeking a counterbalance to relieve his inadequacies.

Creator Sean Pecknold exhibits an easy enthusiasm for cinema. Citing Jim Henson, Will Vinton and Yuri Norstein as influences, he says “I’ve always loved animated films, the early Disney films and during the 90s heyday. And now Pixar is just on another level, though I miss the traditional technique of Disney… But Ratatouille was such a terrific film.”

Pecknold’s career as an animator began with a collective called Milk, working with local filmmaker Matt Daniels, although he is now directing and animating on his own. Prior to Milk, Pecknold worked for two years as an editor on documentaries and television shows in Seattle.

“I now work on all kinds of projects from short films and music videos, to children’s books and installation art projects.” He shoots on both digital video and Super 8, and utilizes a variety of techniques including stop-motion, Claymation, and puppetry. He says, “I guess I’m fascinated by all forms of animation and story telling.”

With a honed artistic outlook Pecknold crafts pictures that reflect whichever medium they explore, yet maintain a solid identity of their own. What lends his films a consistent, particular voice is his choice in music: he makes use of his brother Robin Pecknold, of the prodigious band Fleet Foxes (on Sub Pop).

“I love working with my brother, he’s my best friend,” Pecknold says. “He amazes me every day with the stuff he comes up with. The projects we’ve worked on together, I usually plant a seed about what we are doing and he comes up with something amazing pretty quickly.”

In one stop-motion endeavor entitled When You Grow Up, the Milk team took 3 days to create a story in which a woman lures a man into the clouds. “Robin scored it in one evening! That piece of music was so beautiful, the film would not have worked without it.”

The Strange Hunger started as a family affair, conceived on a far away seaside. “In the fall I took a trip with my brother Robin and sister Aja to our homeland of Norway, and we stayed with some distant relatives who live on a small fishing island on the west coast. There is an 87-year old man there that still rows his boat and fishes every morning off the coast,” Pecknold remembers.

Returning wintertime to his Capitol Hill art-collective studio, fitted with an idea and a SIFF deadline, Pecknold and illustrator Chris Alderson set about fashioning a tale distinct in look, sound and feel. “I wanted to make a short that somehow involved a brave fisherman, and I guess with loneliness.”