Away with the Fairies is the 2D animated short that I made in my final year of University. The story is about an Old man named Tommy who believes he will die if the Fairy tree on his land falls.
I wanted to tell a story set in Ireland, close to home. I live in the countryside of Monaghan. I loved watching the Cartoon Saloon movies as a kid because it blew my mind to see familiar stories made for the big screen. I remember renting the DVD of The SEcret of Kells from the library when I was 8, when I brought it home that evening my parents said we could only watch the start as it was nearing bedtime, that didn’t happen thought and we made it through the end! These stories haven’t escaped my mind since, so I wanted to introduce a twist of Irish Mythology to my film as well. Below you can see a board of my inspiration and references.
The summer before I was due back in University I was chopping down Fairy trees with my dad, to collect firewood for the upcoming winter. I kept thinking about the superstitions and wondering if we would be cursed by the mythical creatures. I thought of ways I could make a story around fairy trees. Then I stumbled upon an interesting interview from the on the Rté archives. Mike Douglas meets with an old man Jim Sweeney, who is convinced that he will die if the fairy tree on his land falls. Jim takes care of the tree by mending to the branches with poles and wires. Mike Douglas plays a prank and tugs on one of the branches to test Jim’s faith, but the old man is having none of it and seriously pushes Mike away.
These are early sketches I made trying to come up with the story. I thought that maybe the antagonist is a shapeshifting Pooka that takes the form of a black Puma. I know that’s quite random, but when searching the RTE archives I found un-ironic news stories of sightings of black pumas in County Monaghan, i also remember hearing an interview with the Seanchaí Eddie Lenihan who said the one way to spot a fair is that their hair is pure black, no matter what form they take. https://www.rte.ie/archives/2019/0527/1051943-puma-on-prowl-in-monaghan/
The design and name for the old man was based on my own Grandfather Tommy
Tommy’s Turnaround
Rough thumbnails sketching out the story.
My idea for the story was for the tree to fall and Tommy to meet the Fairy, but I didn’t know what could happen next. Would the Fairy kill Tommy? - no that’s not a happy ending. I then had the idea that Tommy could invite the fairy to live with him, and it made sense. Tommy is a lonely old man, his only friend seems to be this fairy tree he feels a huge responsibility for, and when he meets the fairy, who’s home is destroyed, why not live together?!
Tommy’s cottage
Dolly’s cottage in county Sligo, is a traditional thatched cottage, you can see in the pictures i shared below. It influenced the design of Tommy’s cottage which I wanted to be homely and represent the person who lives there. I included the St.Brigids cross, carrigaline pottery and the Staffordshire dogs, there is also a lonely portrait of the old man himself hung on the wall. (I made the colour palette by colour dropping from a cast photo of the Muppets)
Designing the Fairy tree
Trees are hard to draw and that’s a fact.
I needed to animate one and show it from different angles and also figure out where Tommy would place the ropes and poles. I made a clay sculpture to help with this. I drew each part of the tree’s branches individually and created a rig in adobe after effects so I could animate the branches swaying in the wind.
Designing the Fairy
I wanted the fairy to look like a funny eccentric guy, wise, but there’s something else to him. A lot of people would ask, where are his wings? And I would say that Irish fairies don’t have wings, they aren’t really fairy’s at all, they can be known as many different things the Tuatha de Dannan, fae, sidhe, banshees, leprechauns, pookas. I named my fairy ‘Biddy’, which is a bit of a silly name, but there used to be an old woman called Biddy Early who performed miracles in the 1800’s and people thought she was a fairy.
I wanted to give Biddy wispy hair like a fairy tree and a beard like the leaves on a hawthorn tree. I found that the designs above appeared too modern, and he looked like a professor, so I settled with giving him a druid like cape and pointy ears!
His colour palette is based on the different dyes you can make with the berries of a fairy tree.
Animation
I imagined that Biddy the fairy would sound like Chris O’Dowd, I loved his work in Moone boy, the IT Crowd and Puffin rock. I was trying to think of which of my classmates could do a good impression when for the fun of it I sent Chris a message on Instagram asking if he would voice my wee character, and he said sure!
( which I did not expect, i felt like those people who invited the Queen of England to their wedding and were actually suprised she showed up!)
When I got Chris on board then pressure was on to find the lead for the film? I asked my brothers and my dad and they weren’t up to it, then I thought, why not Ardal O’Hanlon, Father Dougal from father ted. It sounds very delusional, but he’s a man from my town, and has the perfect Monaghan accent. I found a way to contact him and he said yes as well!
You can listen to his voice in the film below :)
