Meet Six Inches of Soil Animator Brook Morgan…

Short time lapse video giving a glimpse into how Brook works

As we get closer to the launch of Six Inches of Soil, we want to introduce you to the incredible people behind the scenes, who’ve had such a huge part in bringing it to life. One of those people is Brook Morgan, the film’s animator. Our Publicist Kate caught up with Brook to get the lowdown on how she became an animator, her creative process and how she made the beautiful animation you’ll see in the film. 

Was becoming an animator something you set out to do from a young age?
I've always loved drawing and animating; it was something I did as a hobby right from childhood. I studied Modern Languages at university and completed my degree and then I decided I wasn’t going to continue on that route for a job. I love languages, but I had a realisation I needed a bit of a reset and that meant focusing on what I love doing. I had a lot of animation work that I'd created in my spare time and so I put it together into a portfolio. I then completed a Masters in Character Animation at Central Saint Martins. For a few years following that I did some freelance animation work and then I worked in a London studio, becoming head of animation, creating projects with a political focus, which was really interesting. Then, about four years ago, I had a yearning to diversify again and work in some other fields, so I went back to being freelance.

You use a lot of mixed media in your work. Can you explain your creative process?
My process for the animation involves paper tearing, ink drawing and then adding digital colouring and additional elements before animating. I love mixing digital technology with rustic hand drawing, using various software to find new ways of working. It really depends on the project, and the drawing style that we're wanting to achieve, and then working out how it's best brought to life. For frame-to-frame animation, I sometimes use computer software or I hand draw; it really depends on the time and the style of the project. For the Six Inches of Soil animation there's a lot of hand drawn ink elements mixed with paper textures creating a collage feel to make the fields and the background. I love that handcrafted collage look.

Then, to bring the collage together, I scan the ink drawings and layer them over the top using Adobe After Effects. I colour it all digitally so I can make sure that it’s really cohesive, even though I'm using all these different elements. As I move through the animation, I bring in photography elements using photographs of people and textures. The Six Inches of Soil animation has a timeline that starts in the past and moves to the present day. As we move through the timeline, away from the natural ways of farming to the industrial revolution, I bring in more photographed elements so it has that manmade feel. At the end we go back to the ink drawing on the paper when we're showing how the future needs to look.

It's fantastic to see it all come together and feel that flow of the animation. I've always got the plan in my head, and I have it written down with lots of sketches, but when you actually see the animation move through it’s really cool.

You worked closely with Colin, the director, can you explain the creative process between animator and director?
It was great to collaborate with Colin throughout the project, coming from a film background he has a lot of visual ideas and knowhow. He sent me over a document that had a lot of stylistic referencing and a storyboard. We adapted the original storyboard but there were a lot of visual ideas already there that I could build on. I then came up with a rough storyboard for the animation. I made sketches scene by scene so we could start to see the composition. From there, I created two key concept images and then an image for each scene. When we were happy with the concept I moved on to the animation and brought it all to life. It's a really wonderful process.

Are there other films that we should look out for that include your work?
Last year, I worked on a short film called Selkie with the Mul Brothers, about the myth of a Selkie. That was another really interesting project. It’s stylistically quite different to the Six Inches of Soil animation although I used paper cutout techniques, but it was all in silhouette.

Six Inches of Soil has been a fascinating project to work on. It’s so inspiring. The film really gives you hope and answers to some of the worrying questions that we all have about food, farming and the environment. I’ve really enjoyed working on it.

You can follow Brook on Instagram @brookmorgan and @this_inkling where she often shares live ink drawings and shows her preferred tools.