The Quay Brothers Talk Christopher Nolan, Short Film Making
The Quay brothers are famous for their short film work, stop-motion animated films with disturbing worlds inhabited by hand-made puppets. Their work is unique, and both beautiful and haunting, and Christopher Nolan knows it.
The acclaimed director reached out to the identical twin brothers and proposed to help find a place for their anthology of work in a blu ray release, as well as improvising a documentary, which was filmed in a day.
"We think that Christopher must have first discussed things through [our distributor] and then, yes, we were warned and one day he telephoned... he brought in this monster of a 35mm camera that he himself operated and finished [the documentary] by late afternoon."
On feature films versus shorts, the brothers said "there's only the need for the two of us and there's absolutely no one to intervene... whilst on a feature, you're gently traumatized by a crew of 44 people that you're genuinely beholden to and as well a ferocious schedule".
The brothers expressed little interest in modern digital technology, including 3D, because at this point the attempt would be "laughable". Understandably so, they're confident in their niche audience that going for updated techniques doesn't feel like a necessity or even a blip in their radar.
On their collection of shorts, they "imagine them as oblique essays or forays into realms from which no answer will ever be an official explanation".
Source: Thefilmstage
