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Title: FIRST REELS INTERVIEW: Leonie MacMillan, Ship of Fools

Reference number: 8532

Date: 1993

Description: Raw interview footage with director Leonie MacMillan, concerning her short animated film SHIP OF FOOLS, made under the Scottish Film Council and Scottish Television's First Reels scheme.

See also ref. 8014 for complete film.

Credits: [camera Stephen O'Donnell
sd. Stuart Major]

Shotlist: Raw interview footage with director Leonie MacMillan, concerning her short animated film SHIP OF FOOLS, made under the Scottish Film Council and Scottish Television's First Reels scheme.

Discusses:- an animated film about being helpless and being homeless, based on the oil painting 'Ship of Fools' by Hieronymus Bosch. Discusses the beginning of the film, jester landing from sky and being ridiculed by the pig and the rabbit. The jester finds all sorts of strange things. Discusses the ending of the film - the jester being completely lost and ragged. The Ship of Fools appear and the jester takes the wine and his place on the Ship as he has nowhere else to go. Leonie discusses her reaction to the painting by Bosch, and how the jester seems a little subdued. She wanted to think about how the jester got on the Ship - to imagine a story prior to this. The message of the film is that it parallels the state of being homeless today, it shows how cruel people can be towards those unable to cope, and the film hopes to encourage people to be more caring. She talks about her love for combining different crafts - she enjoyed using plasticine models in the animation, contrasting with other textures such as beads and felt.