The many faces of David Wilson.

Stoic patience is something that every director needs, especially those working in the painstaking world of animation. So it’s ironic that Somerset-raised David Wilson’s career has been on fast forward. The 24-year-old was snapped up by Blinkink last year, just eight months after graduating from the University of Brighton, and has since impressed us with an uncanny knack for matching music to fresh and original craftiness that feels utterly right.

He dazzled us with “We Got Time” for folksy singer Moray McLaren, propelling the obscure, arcane technology of the praxinoscope into the 21st century with beautiful, woodsy illustrations. We Have Band’s “You Came Out” made face painting into stop-motion narrative, while “Remedy” matched Little Boots’ disco pop with a glittering kaleidoscope.  

On what subject could you be called upon to speak as an expert for a documentary film?
I could probably talk quite extensively on day dreaming.

What impact has the recession had on your creativity as a director?
The financial lull gave me the perfect lull in in-flowing work to do personal projects and pursue them to create finished, fully visualized work. Instead of sitting back and hoping for the situation to improve, I got cracking on honing the animation technique that I use in the Moray McLaren promo, a music video that has essentially launched my career.

Craft seems to play a huge part in your work: can you explain where that drive for handmade creativity has come from?
I guess it comes from my love for play. I really like to devise concepts and pitches by doing little tests and making little mechanisms before any budget becomes involved. I try my best to sit in front of a blank sheet of paper instead of a blank computer screen when pitching on jobs, and that approach has a tendency to bleed through to the end result.

How old were you when you started making films?
I first picked up my Dad’s video camera when I was about eight years old. During the summer holiday of my first year studying illustration at the University of Brighton we were given the task of creating a postcard from home. I’d just acquired a computer, and decided to tackle an animation over the ridiculously long summer break. I created my first animated short consisting of 600 self portraits animated in a sequence in various locations around my home town of Wells. It was a real labor of love, but it got a great response, eventually getting my first televised exposure on MTV. Q

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