Rob Munday
Returning to Short of the Week for a 2nd time in 2015 – former Royal College of Art student Stephen McNally expands on the impressive Forgot with his distinct graduation film Meanwhile. A 5-minute animation that takes its viewers on a colourful journey through city streets, McNally’s narrative follows four individuals, lost in their own thoughts, whose lives become unexpectedly intertwined.
“A glorious hodgepodge of techniques”
Building on a distinct style first glimpsed in his previous short, McNally’s visual impressive aesthetic blends computer generated 3D and hand-drawn 2D animation, to create what the director describes as “a glorious hodgepodge of techniques”. Inspired to create his film after moving to London to study, McNally’s observations of hordes of people all living in one space, but failing to acknowledge each other, helped shape his film.
“I was curious as to how you could tell a story between disparate characters, where they each refuse to engage with the world around them”, says McNally. “Where they don’t talk to each other, but you would get a sense of their lives and frustrations…Trying to tell these fragmented internal struggles of four different characters in their own separate worlds at the same time, so they commented on and complimented each other. Developing distinct visual languages and systems, musical leitmotifs and even distinct lettering styles to go with each person’s inner thoughts/memories and their perceptions of the world, building a rhythm and tying all the threads together in a way that would be able to say something greater about the whole thing”.
As with his previous film, McNally manages to fit a lot into such a tight run-time. Each of his four characters comes complete with their own backstories, making them feel rounded and developed. Whilst the feelings of contemplation and regret build throughout Meanwhile’s until they almost become palpable. His aesthetic is bold and immersive, but for me it’s this condensed storytelling where the filmmaker’s work really excels. Managing to develop complex emotions in a story so brief, whilst also allowing an audience time for self-reflection is no easy task – but McNally showed he could do it with Forgot and then took it to the next level with Meanwhile.
Currently working on a couple of commissions, starting to write his next animated short and working on a collaboration with another writer, 2016 is looking like it could be a busy year for Stephen McNally.