In a way, this is the interview I’ve been waiting nearly 30 years for. Jim Henson’s Labyrinth is my favorite movie and Toby Froud played Toby, the baby kidnapped by the goblin king Jareth (David Bowie). He wasn’t a baby actor per se. He just happened to be puppeteer Brian Froud’s child at just the right age when they needed a baby. Now Toby Froud is a 30-year-old man and he’s gone into the family business. He’s worked on the past two Laika animated films Paranorman and The Boxtrolls, and has made an all-puppet short film called Lessons Learned.
Lessons Learned has been playing at film festivals and it’s about to have a big run this weekend. Los Angeles readers can see it at Cinefamily on Sunday, August 31 at 4:15PM. This weekend it will also play at the Portland Film Festival (where Froud is located and will appear), DragonCon and the Cambridge UK Film Festival. I spoke with Froud by phone to discuss his directorial debut in Lessons Learned, the story of a boy who receives a birthday gift of a box with a single life lesson in it. But the boy finds his grandpa’s stash of lesson boxes and goes overboard in the world of lessons.
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CraveOnline: Being the baby in Labyrinth wouldn’t necessarily lead to you going into the business, but growing up as Brian Froud’s son, did that lead you go into puppetry?
Toby Froud: Yeah, it really did. It was a combination of everything really. I have to say it was really a mixture of everything. Being surrounded by art, by fantasy growing up and by puppets and by the creativity of my parents. Then Henson’s as well really shaped who I am, I believe.
Were the Hensons involved with Lessons Learned?
Yes, the youngest daughter, Heather Henson was. She and I met after seeing some art at a gallery in New York. My parents and I were having a show and she saw my art and asked if I would consider doing a short puppet film. She gives grants to puppet artists to do short pieces, so she started me on my way. It was a nice way of starting me off and giving me permission almost to just carry on and do something in whatever I wanted to do creatively. So I started that way and created Lessons Learned and the idea for it, and then ran a Kickstarter to fully fund the idea of what I was going to achieve.
Most Henson projects had human actors with the puppets. Did you want to go the Dark Crystal route with all puppets?
Absolutely. Certainly The Dark Crystal was a huge influence because hardly anyone tries to do fully realized puppet films and worlds anymore. It’s only occasional that something like that might happen. I think it’s a really valid art form still and I think you can create quite magical things and take people on a journey that really affects them. So I’m trying to achieve that without having to use human actors, try and make people realize that puppets can do quite amazing things on screen.
Is it a struggle to keep the puppet arts alive these days?
Yeah, I think so. It has been in recent years but certainly there’s a resurgence coming back. People are not so into CG. They’re realizing that CG isn’t necessarily the answer. It’s certainly something that can enhance and help fulfill a world that you’re trying to create, but it may not be the answer for a character. Whereas a puppet is a real thing.
I have a theory on that. Let me run this by you. I think the problem with CGI is that computer artists mistakenly think they can put their CG creation front and center, but practical puppet artists always knew they had to frame it a certain way, light it a certain way so that you didn’t see everything. That’s the cinematic illusion. You could probably do CGI effectively if you didn’t have the hubris to show it full frontal. Is that an artistic direction that a lot of new artists are maybe missing?
You’re absolutely right. With CG the way it is, you build a CG character and people think they do anything they want to and they show the whole thing. And that is a huge mistake. With a puppet of any sort, you’re limited to what it can do. Number one it will do one or two things pretty well and the rest you have to really hide and make believe that it can actually do more than it can. So as a director, as an artist, you are faced with a lot of challenges. You’re faced with how to film it, how to make it look good, how to make it move from one side of the screen to the other, and it takes a lot to do that and it takes a lot of people to do that. With CG, they say, “Okay, it’s going to move here, it’s going to do this.” You’re not bound by those creative problems which really make everything so much better I think. Everyone has to think more when doing those sort of things. I really feel that’s a huge thing that’s missing from CG.
On a positive side, I would love to see what can be achieved when CG takes that approach of keeping it a little more mysterious, and using it more as a digital puppet.
Absolutely, I think that’s certainly to come. I will say honestly that Dawn of the Apes and [Rise of the] Planet of the Apes, they’re slight game changers. I think they really are artists doing CG work and they’re creating these amazing characters that are beginning to really stand out as oh, okay, we’re actually watching CG but they look real enough. There are always problems but certainly they’re getting to the point where okay, let’s see what we can do to make something creative, puppet-like and also CG and marry those two successfully, for maybe the first time.
Apes is good but I still feel like they’re making them front and center characters when maybe there’s a more mysterious way to apply the performance capture.
Absolutely. That’s why I’m really interested now is seeing them do that and thinking, “Okay, well if you’re going to apply puppet techniques and the idea of what would be your limitations with a puppet and think creatively that way,” I’m excited. I can’t wait. I think it’s going to be really interesting.
Was it your decision to make the voices in Lessons Learned British?
Yes, it was. It was the feel of “Jim Henson’s Storyteller” certainly. It almost had a fable feel to it, some sort of an older timey feel. The grandfather’s voice is actually done by an American storyteller artist, Mark Lewis. He was able to blend, it’s become mid-Atlantic I would say. It’s not 100% British, it’s not 100% American. I think everyone can understand it and that’s really good. It keeps everyone involved and it’s not necessarily segregating anyone from the voices and what they could follow. That’s really important.
Did you imagine the world of Lessons Learned as something that could open up and continue, maybe as a feature?
Yes, Lessons Learned really is a small part of this very big world, at least bigger than what you’re seeing. Feature-wise, yes potentially. Even a kids TV show. The idea of learning through lessons, actually showing those lessons is something we could learn through or going on these amazing, strange crazy adventures as a feature would be fantastic. It would be quite a wonderful place to go because you start from such a small, intimate beginning and you have the whole world to go into.
Labyrinth is my favorite movie of all time. When did you actually see the film as a kid at a point when you could process it?
Ooh, I’m not sure because I really did grow up as as much of a fan of the film as being a part of it. So it was always on. I loved watching Labyrinth growing up so it was at an extremely early age. At least when I was three onwards. I loved it and I also loved watching the behind the scenes of it as well, seeing how it was all built. I was fascinated by that. Even though I was there, I longed to be there when I was older as well.
I don’t suppose you have any subconscious memories of it.
The interesting thing is, I always say I’m not sure but I do have visions of goblin faces up close. Whether that is me just remembering the film and behind the scenes with the goblins, or it is me remembering being around the goblins on set, I have no idea but I love the idea that all I see are goblin faces.
Was there a moment as an adult where you processed “Wait a minute, that’s me dancing with David Bowie?”
[Laughs] It’s funny, no. I have yet to process it. I always grew up knowing that fact, being a huge fan of David Bowie myself musically. So I was listening to his songs growing up and unfortunately, I’ve never met the man since. I’d love to. It’d be an honor to meet him again but I think it was really natural. It was something that was a part of my life. It was like okay, this is my childhood and I carried on being creative, having goblins and fairies around me growing up. It was a natural progression, just a jump start into it I think.
And you named your company Stripey Pajamas after your costume in Labyrinth, right?
Yes, I have, correct. I couldn’t help it. The lineage of the stripey pajamas is synonymous with me, and I love that fact. I always tell people I wear the stripey pajamas underneath my clothes and I think it’s true. I am honored to have been a part of Labyrinth and been a part of the Henson film and to have grown up with that. For me to carry on with puppets, Stripey Pajamas seemed absolutely right to me.
Have you ever popped in on the Labyrinth of Jareth they have every year?
Yes, I have. I went quite a few years ago. I’ve been a couple of times when it was in San Diego and then in L.A. and it was so much fun. It was amazing. It really was. Very strange to see effigies of me being thrown about the place. Flashbacks happened then but it was a lot of fun. It’s amazing to see people really get into the idea of a goblin ball and dressing up in beautiful gowns and wonderful costumes full of fantasy and fun. I love that. It’s amazing people just cherish that idea and the film and what it stands for.
Working for Laika, did you work on any of the memorable scenes from Paranorman?
So I joined on Paranorman and I was a puppet fabricator, building their bodies and costumes, sculpting bits and stuff like that. That was a lot of fun because I had never been in animation before. It was my first time in stop motion animation. It was just a whole new world. The detail and time and energy that goes into all of this is just amazing. I did that and I carried on to The Boxtrolls which is coming out in September. I was a sculptor on Boxtrolls. I was part of a team that was doing that for the actual puppets you see moving on screen. It was wonderful to do these strange boxtroll creatures and be a part of that.
How many different copies of a character do they need for those movies?
Depending on the character, Paranorman himself there were 28 I believe, 28 versions of Norman. There were the same or 26 Eggs for Boxtrolls. They’re the main heroes and then it goes down. We’re talking at least 10 puppets of each character because you have a certain amount of animators working on different shots and different scenes throughout the film using those same characters. It’s an amazing feat to pull off one of these films.
After Cinefamily, where can people see Lessons Learned?
Cinefamily at the end of August. We are showing in the Portland Film Festival and DragonCon and the Cambridge Film Festival in the UK as well all over that week. In September, the first time people will get to meet the boy, the actual puppet of the boy will be there in person moving and everything. The puppeteer who did him will be with me. If people will travel around England to see that, that will be great. We premiere in New York at the end of October at Puppets on Film as part of the Henson festival that goes on at BAM. That’s October 26th I believe. We’ll all be there, the whole Froud family, Brian and Wendy, my parents and I. We’ll be doing talks, showing the film, showing I believe Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. It’ll be a big event. Then I hope to release it. I really hope to be able to release the film onto DVD and digital downloads as soon as possible.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
