An Interview with ‘After The End’ director Sam Southward
Nexus have this week announced their official launch of the multi-award winning film After The End, directed and co-written by Nexus director Sam Southward. Having recently won a Gold Screen at the Cannes Young Director Award,the film is a hilarious animated short about a post apocalyptic world featuring two extraordinary characters, mind warping drugs and full frontal male nudity. It explores the possibility that the only thing worse than being the last man in earth is being the second to last man on earth.
The film was produced at The National Film and Television School and many of the animators collaborated remotely from all around the world. Much like After The End, Southward’s work follows a distinctive visual style – combining live action with CG animation.
Skwigly were able to catch up with Sam Southward to talk about his NFTS graduation film.
How did you start out as an animator and how did you find your time at the NFTS?
Growing up I loved comics and cartoons and always felt the need to tell stories, but I was always quite resistant to the idea of becoming an animator as I thought I wouldn’t have the patience to draw the same thing over and over again. I began to experiment making little films and loved finally having an outlet for my stories, but it was when 3D computer animation packages first became available for home computers that I had my ‘eureka moment’. I suddenly realised that I could literally create anything I wanted inside these programs and had complete control and freedom. The irony is that I had originally experimented with 3D naively thinking it would be a quicker than traditional animation, but when you get down to it, it is easily as intense and time consuming as all animation is!
Going to the NFTS was something I had always dreamed of, but I was always a little unsure of how my work would fit in there. One year I decided to fill out the application form and see what happened. To my amazement I got in! My time at NFTS was great fun and also a lot of hard work. I learnt a great deal and it has prepared me well for where I am now.
After The End certainly has a stop motion feel to it with CG characters that look they are done in Claymation. The visual style really reminds me of Aardman’s Stage Fright written and directed by Steve Box. What led to this visual style and how to you achieve it?
The technique used in After the End is live action miniature sets with CG characters comp’ed in. In my work I always enjoy mixing live action and CG elements, I really believe it’s like magic but without the need for a pointy hat and beard. The film is a development of that, borrowing from the charm of stop motion miniature sets and the beauty and texture you get by using real light. I always like my characters to look a bit hand made and ‘low fi’ as I think it adds charm and character in a world surrounded by a lot of super slick CG.
It’s refreshing to see the apocalypse theme tackled from a truly microcosmic perspective; the last two men on Earth! How did you and your co-writer Samantha Collins come up with this story?
I had wanted to do something post-apocalyptic for some time as I love the visuals you can create in a destroyed world, but also feel it can be used as an interesting lens to talk about our own time. I love comedy and find it such a great way to write, as when it is done well it provokes such a positive reaction from the audience but can also deliver a strong message. At the time I began writing it (early 2014), there hadn’t really been a humorous take on life after some kind of apocalyptic event, so I used this as the starting point. Without being too specific, I decided to have our apocalypse bought about by mankind itself; the film’s story then becomes a microcosm of the destruction of mankind ironically repeating itself again, with no lessons learned. When first writing, Samantha and I had so many ideas, the original script was about three times the size of the final film, we totally fell in love with the characters and the world and we plan to develop it into an ‘After the End’ series. We have already penned the outlines for the next few episodes and an overall story arc – so exciting times are ahead.
I understand that the production team included animators from all over the world working remotely. What was it like to work in this way?
The team I had was absolutely amazing and worked incredibly hard. Once we had shot the back plates, we began the animation, two fully lip-synced characters and over 200 shots, a really mammoth amount of work! We had animators working all around the world, sending scenes at all hours. I would wake up at 6 in the morning in the UK, send out my feedback from the previous day, work a full day up until 10 or 11 at night, then our animators in America and Brazil would wake up and start sending through their work to review, which basically meant we had a 24 hour production. I was sending emails right up to going to sleep. It was absolutely exhausting but everyone was so talented and worked so hard that it allowed us to complete a huge amount of work. I am as equally as proud of how well the team worked together as I am of the finished film.
I understand you are now working at Nexus. How did you join their team?
It’s a dream come true for me to be represented by Nexus. I’ve been a huge fan of their work for many years and their roster of directors has many of my personal favorites so it’s amazing for me to be now repped alongside them!
Film Credits
Directed by Sam Southward
Produced by Michelangelo Fano
Written by Samantha Collins and Sam Southward
Cinematographer Diana Olifirova
Production Designer Olivia Dixon
CG Supervisor Matt Norris
Editor Neil Lenthall
Composer Antonio Nardi
Sound Designer Ben Hensor
On line Editor & Colourist Alex Peters
To find out more about the work of multi-award winning animation studio Nexus have a read of our prior coverage and visit nexusproductions.com