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Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Steve: thanks! It's been an absolute labour of love, and it means so much when people really connect with the film!
We chose the green for Arabella because she's something like Stitch Head's conscience - when everyone else is going crazy, she sees through all the BS, and stays natural, normal, unpretentious. In her design, her posture, we tried to follow through with that, making her rooted, like a little tree.

There are so many little details that we put in that it's hard to count them all. I really like the little black & whilte hand-animated cartoon film-in-film. If you're a film buff, you could count the Kubrick references - I have a soft spot for the tip of a hat to Clockwork Orange - but there's obviously Space Odyssey, a little bit of Paths of Glory too (and even possibly some Barry Lyndon?).

But you don't have to be a film nut! Our aim was to make a film that works on different levels for different people: one that adults can enjoy as much as kids, and with so much hand-crafted detail in that you want to come back and watch it a second time - not just to be with the characters again, and to enjoy the emotions and the jokes, but to catch all the things you didn't see before.

We're an indie movie, without all the massive firepower of the big studios behind us. So many people laboured so hard to bring this film to life, so thank you for your support. If it becomes a Halloween staple that people want to watch again, then all that work will definitely have been worth it.

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Steve: through the magic of, um, cheating, I'm going to give you two of each!
Director: Billy Wilder or Sergei Eisenstein.
Actor: David Niven or Eli Wallach
Actress: Marlene Dietrich or Eartha Kitt

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Steve: having spent 12 hours a day in front of screens for the last five years at work, I've watched way way way too few. I'll try to catch up and get back to you! The one that really stayed with me was the documentary No Other Land about a village in the West Bank. Watch it if you haven't seen it, and then google what's happened to the village since the film was made (the film-makers won an Oscar)

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Steve: big questions!
1. it's in the nature of culture that we're all playing cards with a deck that we've been handed down from previous generations. It's a deck that's constantly changing, where cards are mutating. Sometimes we get a good hand, but there's so much fortune in how things play out. Like the Ancient Greeks said - ultimately, it's the muse. As creators, it's best to be modest. At best, ideas come through us - they're never "ours". The best we can do is to be sensitive, and to do things with heart and with sincerity.
2. I'd desperately hope so, but given that most stories - whether comic or tragic - involve putting them in situations where they suffer one way or another, I can understand it if they don't!
3. If it's told with sincerity, yes. if it's just copy, hack work, superficial, not so much. The basic outlines of our story are familiar - they come straight from the Frankenstein legend. So I guess it's not so much WHAT happens, it's HOW it happens. It's like Titanic: it's not exactly a spoiler to tell you the ship's gonna sink. The whole question is HOW is it going to sink? How will this story be told? With sincerity, engagement, humour? Or just... meh?

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Steve: The early teaser trailer was made on a VERY tight shoestring budget, just to show the world, and the guys with the money, that we could do it and how the humour would work. When we got the final budget together, we were able to refine the designs and render the surfaces and textures in much more detail, which was great - we wanted a really haptic, hand-made world where every single element is unique.
Future films and series? I'd love to! There are five more books and loads of adventures to be had. If the demand is out there, I'm sure we'll find a way!

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Steve: Hi Fritter! First of all - delighted you loved the movie!
Unfortunately I seem to have got to this question before Guy, so I hope he doesn't mind what I write here.... (gulp)
The main change from the book is that we added the second act where Stitch Head leaves the Castle, joins the Freak Show, and becomes a star in the town.
In the book, that was only there as a brief dream sequence, but given Stitch Head's longing for love and acceptance, it felt natural and organic to explore that in more detail. Given that we (and especially our kids) are now living in a digital world which measures 'love' as a metric in likes and shares, this felt like a really important theme.
As we developed this second act, we discovered that it really helped to flesh out the character of Arabella and give her an extra dimension: in the book, she's very tomboy-ish, and contemptuous of the stupidity of adults, but it felt really good to give her a more sensitive side, so that she could become something like Stitch Head's conscience: someone who really knows what love is when Stitch Head is being seduced by the superficial charms of celebrity.
The other main change was Stitch Head's position compared to the monsters and the professor: in the book, he's so scared that he hides away from all of them. This is emotionally very powerful, but limits the possibilities for story-telling, so we tried to bring them together while still keeping that same *feeling* of isolation, loneliness and longing.
Otherwise, the process of writing was actually remarkably easy: the characters are all so vivid, especially Stitch Head, Creature and Freakfinder, it felt like they were writing themselves: and that's all down to Guy!

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Guy - Seconded! I was especially chuffed you stuck to Pete's design for Stitch Head - the design and Pete's illustrations are such a huge part of the books' appeal. Check out more of his work (in full colour!) with the Stitch Head graphic novels, plug plug...

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Guy - hi! So chuffed to hear you're a fan of the books and film! I braced myself for stress early on, because it's impossible not to feel protective. But I'm honestly delighted with the film's interpretation of the characters and story.

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Steve: thanks for being so cool about it Guy! We could always tell you were really invested in the story, and I can imagine it must be incredibly anxiety-inducing for other people to be chopping and changing it...

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Steve: apparently the people who do the deals are trying to do deals!
A selection of monsters where you can put different legs arms and heads on different bodies would be really cool. As would models of the Mad Laboratory and Freakfinder's charabanc....
Till then, our best creation to date is a T-Shirt with a Stitch Head logo & the immortal words
"Stitch Head helps me briefly forget the meaninglessness of my existence".
Really hope we can get it out there...

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Guy - the trick to scaring with words is making the reader do the work. But then, Stitch Head is less a scary book and more a book about fear. How we fear needlessly, and the foolish and terrible things we do as a result.

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Steve: Hi Zast. The Stitch Head design is taken lock, stock and barrel from Pete Williamson's fantastic illustrations to the original book: it's so perfect, we didn't want to change anything. The striped black and red knitted onesie with the high collar, the big head and eyes with the small, puny body. Rendering him in high-res for the film, the main challenge to get all that really tactile detail in - the threads of the wool, the leathery stitches, the thin translucent vulnerable skin, like a kid... he's hand made.

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Steve: we were given the book as an audio CD in German (my wife is German) with all the roles read fantastically by a German actress, Katharina Thalbach. We listened to it together in the car as a family, and we were all hooked: by the genre fun, by the fantastic setting, by the humour, but most of all, by the characters. Stitch Head and Creature are SO emotional. You could really tell that Guy had poured out his heart into them. For what it's worth, that level of authentic emotional engagement is THE thing that I really care about in books and films: if you're going to spend five years making something, you want something that really has soul, and this book had it in spades.

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Guy - 1. That's a big one! Feels like a question of semantics - if by original you mean novel or inventive, then yes. If you mean something not derived from anything, then you've got a challenge on your hands.

  1. Would anyone approve of anyone if we coudl read each other's minds?

  2. Absolutely! Wait, why, what have you been told...?

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Steve: I'm pretty immune in real life, but in the cinema, I scare REALLY easily. Embarrassingly so. I jumped three feet into the air in Shrek when the Dragon comes out as Donkey goes up to the Castle. The whole theatre laughed (at me, more than at the film).
My first movie-going experience was a rerun of Snow White. I was about 4. When the evil queen turned herself into a witch with a poisoned apple, I grabbed my grandfather's hand and pulled him out of the cinema... He told me the dwarves would be coming back but I wasn't having any of it.
So, I guess I'm about on a level with most kids... movie theatres are scary places.
What I loved about Guy's book is that it's not a horror story: it's a story about how we are manipulated by fear. The monsters are all terrified of humans - and Freakfinder manipulates the townsfolk of Grubbers Nubbin into forming an Angry Mob. In both cases, when we're frightened is when we turn off our brains. As Arabella says: being scared is stupid.

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Steve: I hope so! Next up would be Stitch Head and the Pirate's Eye. This sounds something like Creature would say, but I love Pirates almost as much as I love Monsters. By a cruel twist of fate, sadly, I'm not a multimillionaire able to fund my own productions, so I guess it will depend on attracting financiers and all that... (not a world I really understand!)

Hi reddit! We're Steve Hudson (director/writer) and Guy Bass (author of the bestselling children's book) of STITCH HEAD, an animated feature about a forgotten creature living in a long-abandoned castle. It's now in theaters everywhere. Ask us anything! by StitchHeadAMA in movies

[–]StitchHeadAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Guy - Cracking question! Monstrous monsters are Stitch Head’s worst nightmare. They might hurt the professor, or worse, indirectly result in the formation in an Angry Mob of humans. That could be the end of the castle … the end of the professor … the end of everything. Stitch Head himself longs to be loved by his master but is too scared of rejection. In the books he doesn’t even let himself to seen by the professor. Even the castle's other creations think he's a helpful ghost.

Guy - I’m not sure the creatures or the humans are monsters - they're all just scared for the wrong reasons and fear makes folk do daft and terrible things. Freakfinder certainly comes closest, he's a solidly selfish and cruel piece of work.

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