New Wave
Animator Bill Plympton restyles in 'Hair High'
By Andy Klein
Bill Plympton is best known for his animated shorts, two of which - Your Face (1987) and Guard Dog (2004) - were nominated for Oscars. In between those, he also created the hilarious One of Those Days (1988), How to Kiss (1989), 25 Ways to Quit Smoking (1989), and Eat (2001). Now he's in town with his new feature, Hair High, which he describes (more or less accurately) as "Carrie meets Rebel Without a Cause."
"The idea of the story came from a dream," Plympton tells me during a recent interview. "In the dream, there was a car at the bottom of a lake, and two skeletons in the front seat, their hair blowing in the current, with worms and bugs and crabs going in and out of their orifices. It was a real Gothic dream. Then the headlights turn on, and the car drives along the bottom of this lake, through the mud and the muck, then comes up on shore ... and drives up to a high school prom. That's where I woke up."
To me, it sounds like the sort of dream that comes from eating tainted fish while watching Dementia 13. Was it a nightmare?
"No," he says. "I didn't wake up in a sweat or anything. It was just strange and interesting. And I thought the idea was very commercial and would justify taking a big step and spending a lot of money on it."
It strikes me as an odd use of the word "commercial," but then Plympton - despite regular TV assignments - has always been committed to his own skewed worldview. Perhaps "commercial" should be seen in relative terms.
The story - a cautionary tale about the doomed lovers Cherri and Spud - is told by a counterman at a diner to a pair of high-schoolers. Once upon a time, Cherri (voice of Sarah Silverman) and Rod (Dermot Mulroney) were the toast of Echo High ... head cheerleader and quarterback, the romantic, popular couple who are destined to be prom queen and king.
When Spud (Eric Gilliland), the new kid in town, says something that's interpreted as an insult to Cherri - apparently the worst imaginable sin - Rod forces him to become Cherri's slave. His instructions include a dire warning not to fall for her. Of course, he does, and she eventually falls for him, as well, leading to Rod's ugly revenge on prom night and the dead couple's cheerful return, a year later, to reclaim their rightful crown.
In the past, Plympton has been inspired by his practical, budgetary limitations. On most of his films, he has drawn every frame himself. "It's a creative opportunity when you have to cut corners and do things frugally," he told me back when his first feature, The Tune, was released in 1992. "It leads to a lot of creativity. Which I like."
But there is always the lure of expansion, and Hair High cost roughly twice as much as any of his earlier animated features. As the old line goes, you can see (or hear) every penny on the screen. For a start, Plympton embraced a richer style than his usual sketch-like visuals.
"I actually hired illustrators to do the backgrounds. These were people who could match my style and direction but were probably much better artists in terms of backgrounds than I am, so I was happy to delegate," he says. "The animation is also smoother and cleaner than I've done before, so I had to hire people to do shadows. And there were more drawings per second."
Not only did he pour cash into a less handmade look, but he also ended up hiring name actors to do the voices. Besides those already mentioned, he got to direct Beverly D'Angelo, Tom Noonan, Ed Begley Jr., Keith Carradine, David Carradine, and Martha Plimpton.
Martha P. was Bill P.'s Hollywood connection. "Martha is a good friend of mine, obviously a relative. A very distant relative, but I've known her since she was 12, back in the Goonies era, when she was just starting out," he says. "I was actually closer to her mom, Shelley Plimpton, also an actress [Hair, Putney Swope]. Martha and I were drinking, and I was telling her about the troubles I was having getting distribution, since the film had no real star power. She was nice enough to offer to make a few phone calls, and she ended up getting all the big-name talent. Well, I brought in Matt Groening and Don Hertzfeldt, but she was able to get all these other people."
I suggest that it must have been intimidating. "Yeah, I was intimidated, especially by the Carradines. I was a big fan of Nashville and all of David's and Keith's stuff. But everyone was enthusiastic. I even found out that Beverly D'Angelo had worked in the cartoon industry in L.A. when she first started out, at Hanna-Barbera or someplace."
"As a voice actor?" I ask.
"No," he says, "as a painter. I think she painted cells. So she loved animation."
The cast was, by Plympton standards, expensive, but it was worth it. "They were supreme professionals. They just nailed it in two or three takes: Now I know why they get paid the big bucks. I mean, Sarah Silverman just was so easy to work with; she did everything I asked. It was terrific, because I had such a limited budget and only had an hour for each actor. We did about 75 percent of the recording in two days in a studio in the Hollywood area."
The hardest person to schedule was Matt Groening. "We finally had to grab him at the San Diego ComicCon and dragged him into some back alley or a closet or something."
Part of the reason for the L.A. opening of Hair High is to qualify the film for next year's Oscars. "On the one hand," Plympton says, "I know we don't have a chance to win the Oscar, but ... who knows? Maybe there'll be a reaction against all this CGI crap that's coming out, and they'll be in the mood for something a little more traditional. People are starting to get tired of all these CGI films about a group of animals all coming together and conquering something.
"The problem with CGI is that everything's so damned perfect," he continues. "For me, imperfection is much more interesting to watch than perfection. The mistakes in my art - the little dirt marks, or drawings that aren't really totally erased - that's what makes it fun to look at. A lot of the CGI stuff is just so mechanical, so cold. There's no warmth to it."
Plympton reminds me that he will be on hand opening night at the Sunset 5 to meet the fans. "And be sure to mention that everyone will get a free drawing."
Published: 04/12/2007
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