A Chat with Emily Hubley, the Animator for Hedwig and the Angry Inch
How did you get involved with Hedwig?
I think Killer Films, John Cameron Mitchell, and Stephen Trask were checking out the work of a number of independent animators around New York City and I had just finished reading Christine Vachon's book (Shooting to Kill) when Eva Kolodner called for my reel, so I had a lucky feeling to begin with. Then I met John, who is magic, and after our first few meetings I knew he'd be great to work with. I got to see the show several times - and kept getting more and more ideas about what I could bring to the project.
What enticed you to work on the project?
Original "Berlin Wall and Wig" cel will be auctioned for charity.
Everything. First, of course, the material - the story, words, humor and heart - was so rich and open - there was plenty of room to investigate different visual and narrative ideas. The time factor was great - if the process had been more pressured, I think, a lot would have been lost. When you struggle over something together over a period of time and laugh and come to love what you've created, it has to make a difference. How could it not?

 
Can you describe the process you went through when designing the animation and working with John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask in creating the animation for the film?

We went through a long process of trying out different visual styles which might accentuate different aspects of the material - German painting and other modern art, underground comics, Ancient Greek art, punk rock album covers. There were a lot of ideas tossed around, which ended up being too diverse to present individually, but in some way(almost) all are represented in what we ended up doing.

Then I started drawing and making collages. I would bring in different kinds of pictures, which we'd discuss, and John would sort of pick and choose. Once the basic style was decided upon I started drawing little storyboards, and later bigger storyboards, which became the layouts for the animated and slide sequences.

Of course, for the "Origin of Love" segments, it was great to have such a wonderful song with evocative lyrics and a great story structure. I remember worrying about whether Stephen would feel like I was living up to the power of the poetry in the song. It's hard with a song because every time you listen to it, you get different pictures and believe me, I listened to that song a zillion times and watched a lot of different movies in my brain. It's impossible to create that multi-faceted vision in one movie, but we did fit a lot in.

Besides the animation, there was a lot of art, which was originally intended to appear in the form of slide shows throughout various scenes in which the band performed. The planning of these actually helped us to flesh out some of the animation's "back story". The little "Birth of Hansel" piece was first created as a sequence of slides, which I animated later because everyone liked it. A very elaborate sequence of art created for the "flying scene" which brings Hedwig to Junction City was replaced by a simpler version. And the notebook pages, which might be my favorite still art, were created after most of the other work was done. Other than that, things went pretty much as we planned before the shooting of the live action.

 
What kind of design research was involved for the animation pieces in Hedwig?
Original "Children of the Earth" cel will be auctioned for charity.
As I mentioned, we looked at a lot of art. As I recall, we were trying to connect the Platonic source material with the East Berlin childhood and the more adult punk rock aesthetic - all with my fairly rudimentary hand. I hope it came out okay - I know I did my best, and had great people working for me in production (they're listed in the credits).

 
What challenges did you face during the production of the film?
At one point there was talk of doing a lot of compositing the live footage with the animation and this was scary to me from a practical standpoint and also because I thought it could be at odds with the general aesthetic of the movie. Fortunately - and it's great when this happens - circumstances limited the digital compositing to the split screen segment in "Origin of Love" and the ending, and I think it contributes to the power of those segments that they aren't surrounded by a bag of tricks.

 
What series did you enjoy creating the most for Hedwig?
I enjoyed creating it all. I think when I'm watching it the split screen segment is my favorite - of course that has to do with the sound (a moving part of the song) and with John's performance. Also, Chris Kairalla and the people at Edgeworx, who digitized that animation, really made the colors sing out in a way I love.

The two scenes, which I animated and colored all alone, were the abstract split screen segment and the end piece. I was drawing and coloring those at night while on vacation with my family in the Adirondacks last summer. And when I watch that part of the movie, I return to that screened porch and remember the feeling of excitement about how the pictures I was making there with very simple art supplies were going to be part of this amazing Hedwig movie. Come to think of it, I was also using glittery nail polish and make-up, so maybe the fumes came into play … I also still laugh at the "Is it Raining" gesture which mimics Hedwig's live gesture and when Zeus cuts the whale's legs off.

 
What influences your work the most?
Any given project has its own true self- and I try to whittle material down to whatever my sense of that is. I try not to get too distracted by outer concerns or events and rely on what's important from the world to demand its own inclusion in whatever I'm working on. The most important thing to me is not to have to hurry when something is new and fragile. I love a lot of art, music and film and try to draw upon what I know while keeping thing new. Is that an answer?

 
Can you share a little bit of your professional history with us?
Original "Girl on Horizon" cel will be auctioned for charity.
When I was growing up I saw a lot of animation, since my parents were making independent animated films and often took their kids where they went. I started making my own films in college, where there were a lot of first person documentaries being made. I've made a dozen or so animated shorts since then, which have shown around at museums, schools and festivals. Sundance Channel has shown some of the more recent ones. I work on my mother's animated shorts and I made a shortform series for Nickelodeon which still pops up on Noggin, I'm told. I've done several animated jobs for documentaries, which is always fascinating because it often involves conveying specific information while providing some kind of entertaining visual relief. I'm working on two very different doc jobs now.

 
Is there anyone you would love to work with in the future?
Original "Deny Me" cel will be auctioned for charity.
The thing about working on Hedwig - which surprised me because it's more high profile than other work I've done - was that unlike many jobs I get called about I couldn't think of someone who could better provide what they were looking for. I attribute a lot of that feeling of security the great people I was working with in terms of the business - Katie Roumel at Killer was always accessible and supportive - and the creativity (did I mention John was a dream? Very generous and clear) but also to the work itself. It was a great assignment - never tainted by neurotic second-guessing. When I woke up in the middle of the night - it was inspiration (the graffiti segment in "Origin" came that way - also the story about the figures on the planet) not the sweats about what I'd gotten myself into. Having experienced that sense of being in the right place, I wouldn't knowingly involve myself in a project where it didn't exist.

Of course there are many filmmakers that I admire, would love to work with and am wowed by as a fan - but the stuff I do is fairly specific and personal. I think that if I had to describe my (future) dream collaboration, it would include getting involved with the scripting of the animated segments and their purpose in the larger film. I love how the animation works in Hedwig - and have always felt that animation can enrich the visual and emotional aspects of live-action stories in many ways that haven't been explored. Animation can tell feature-length stories as well of course. That's another topic.

A selection of original animation cels from the film, signed by artist Emily Hubley, were auctioned online at http://auction.newline.com. All proceeds from the auction were donated to charity.