I first met Darcy Prendergast randomly at an animation festival two years ago in Zagreb, Croatia, where he was screening his claymation short Ron the Zookeeper. Since then I’ve kept a keen interest in his work and am constantly blown away with everything he works on.

Born and bred in Melbourne, Prendergast started his artistic career on the living room walls of his family home. Medium of choice: Crayon. From then on, it’s been onwards and upwards with Prendergast’s Dee Pee Studios pursuing a gamut of artistic endeavors and screening at prestigious festivals all around the world.

Having won Young Cartoonist of the Year, scoring a $20,000 grant, working on Cadbury commercials and being a lead sculptor on Mary and Max, Prendergast is doing what he loves and is a bit of a superstar in the Animation world – all at the ripe old age of 24.

All Images Copyright Darcy Prendergast

Hello Darcy. So what is your story?
Hello Brendan, I’m going to make you sorry you asked that… You know I’m verbose at the best of times right? Err Hmmm… I was one of those kids, who liked to come home from school and watch cartoons until Mum demanded to remain up to speed on current world events. I religiously watched the likes of Charlie Chalk, Rugrats, The Trapdoor and anything by Henson Company. The ABC after school line up… God it was the golden age. I progressed into drawing and sculpting things myself, and had ‘something’ (or so I’ve been told) from a young age.

So the good ol’ parentals nurtured that hive of creativity, and sacrificed everything to ensure I had as many art materials as my chubby little hands could control. So years went by – cue montage of a young Darcy improving slowly but surely- and I snagged the Young Cartoonist of the Year award, was approached by a print company to design a range of cards, and then went stagnant. My school (Officially the 2nd worst in Victoria according to a Herald Sun poll at the time) didn’t even own a video camera and employed an art teacher who didn’t know who Picasso was. My desires to create clay animation were put on hold, until I was lucky enough to land a Scholarship to Mowbray College, Melbourne which had a remarkable precinct titled the ‘Art Department’. My idea of Heaven. That year I developed the misanthropic/hermit like qualities every animator requires, and taught myself the ways of clay. With my high school film, I won several awards, screened alongside Harvie Krumpet, and won the Nescafe Big Break Award – $20,000 dollars. The start of the dream.

I went to uni after that, made my short Off the Rails in my spare time, won some more awards, then hibernated again. I then emerged at the end of the three-year course with my graduate film- Ron the Zookeeper. Things went boom. I went straight from uni into working on Cadbury commercials, then to the ABC animating for the Kids team and JTV, then I took Ron to Annecy Animation Festival – the biggest animation festival in the world. It showed me just how big this dream I was chasing really is. Then it was onto Mary and Max…

Yes, I couldn’t help but to spot your dreadlocks in the time-lapse footage on the Mary and Max DVD. How did that all come about?
I’ve known director Adam Elliot for almost 7 years now, originally meeting at a film festival we both screened at. That was right before Harvie Krumpet scored its Oscar nomination, which of course it later went on to win. I was sending Adam bits and pieces I made along the way and kept in touch, and before long he had Mary and Max in the pipeline. I moved onto that project as an assistant animator, but Adam dug my sculpting style, and I moved into a Lead Sculptor role. It was an incredible learning experience for me.

The video you did for Lucky by All India Radio is simply beautiful. Could you please tell me about the process involved?
Ha! So basically we set the camera to a long exposure, and draw in the sky with anything that emits light. It’s kind of like writing your name with sparklers. The long exposure traces where you’ve been with the light and enables you to draw pictures. Sounds simple in theory but is damn tough to achieve recognisable shapes, let alone animate them.

It looks like it took a long time to complete. How many people and how many hours are we talking?
I’m glad it looks that way – it was a six-month project. It was supposed to be three months and was 90 percent finished when my studio was broken into and I lost everything. As you could imagine, being this close to completion only to have the rug pulled out from under you is soul destroying at best, but it was really a blessing in disguise. After I dusted myself off, we began experimenting with camera moves and more complicated animation – mainly to keep it interesting and challenging for ourselves. The very first shoot we did after the break in was shot in between security patrols at a football stadium that shall remain nameless. Ha! Picture it, three men, dressed in black, playing outside with coloured lights, evading security in a football stadium. Guerilla artists! Ridiculousness aside, it turned out to be the most incredible shot of the film in my mind and was a big incentive to keep pushing the technique.

In terms of team, we never had more than four people. It was especially hard the second time around when there was no budget left to purchase ‘morale beer’. You’ve got to remember, we shot this in the middle of night, in middle of winter. Gloves, scarves, three jackets, it was that kind of cold. Morale beer is damn important. Towards the end, I was shooting most of the stuff solo, using little bits of bark as markers to try and keep track of multiple characters and camera moves. I’d be out on 10-hour shoots as soon as the light diminished. All worth it in the end!

Gumby or Pingu?
Pingu. I love Gumby, but I’ve held a real Pingu character which has swayed my decision.

What keeps you sane during the long days and nights of painstaking claymation shoots?
Who said anything about sanity?

In three words how would you describe your work ethos?
Fun, constant, ambitious.

Where do you feel most inspired?
Funnily enough, in my own space. I took a big gamble renting out a studio in Brunswick, Melbourne. Initially I had no idea how I was going to pay rent, yet alone eat, however the business is now nearly two years old, and I have a foosball table, pool table, drum kit on the mezzanine, mini tramp and Tarzan rope. They might sound like materialistic expenditures but I stay inspired by staying young and enjoying life and this studio is my version of heaven. I have an area to do whatever makes me happy.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Bob Dylan once said ‘A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do’. Well I get up in the afternoon and go to bed in the morning but the quote resonates with me regardless. To me, my greatest achievement is staying on track, chasing precisely what I want from this life. Friends say ‘You’re so lucky doing what you love every day’. It’s got nothing to do with luck. I work 16-hour days yet don’t work a minute. It’s what I’d be doing after work if I did have work. It’s not easy, it’s not financially stable but its what I love. I am lucky to have found that.

What are you working on at the moment?
My producer is in New York right now actually, pitching my kid’s series. I don’t know how much I can say at this point in time, but I’m super excited about doing animation targeted at this age bracket. Making shows like the ones that inspired me as a kid, I’d feel honoured to be able to give that entertainment back. To quote the Lion King- and so, we are all connected in the great Circle of Life. Plenty in the pipe…

www.deepeestudios.com

All Images Copyright Darcy Prendergast