Julia Pott has got a crush on animation

Julia Pott created one of the most original and endearing short animations we’ve ever seen on Crackle. My First Crush is the collected stories of the first infatuations of a handful of Brits, told by the wistful people themselves, who are animated as a variety of fauna. Watch it below:

We knew we had to ask Pott all about her hilarious, touching, and totally unique short. It turns out she’s a recent University (as the wild English call college) grad who is a lovely, accommodating, effusive interviewee. Enjoy:

Crackle: How did you first get into animation? Is it something you’ve always wanted to do?

JP: When I was younger, my main ambition in life was to work for Disney. Well, actually, my first main ambition was to be a balloon, but by the time I’d wised up by the age of 5 I realised Disney was where I wanted to be; however, I never put two and two together and realized that working at Disney meant being an animator. I have always been a visual person and I have always wanted to pursue a career in art in any form. I think that form was always animation, even if I wasn’t aware of it. When I was doing foundation at Chelsea College of Art one of my tutors pointed out to me that all of my drawings were done in sequence, and [asked if] I had ever considered going into animation. That’s when it clicked that [animation] was the right path for me.

Crackle: My First Crush has got such a distinctive style—do you think of this as your personal style, or just one that you adopted for the purposes of the short?

Julia Pott: I definitely work in a specific style, in both my illustration and animation endeavours, and it is reflected in My First Crush. However, I did simplify the characters somewhat to make the animation easier to accomplish and also to make the film more aesthetically pleasing. As it was the first animated short I designed and directed single-handedly, it established my style as an animator.

Crackle: What was your inspiration for My First Crush—how did you get the idea in general, and how did you decide on your people-as-animals approach?

JP: My inspiration for this film came from personal experience. At the time of its development I was just beginning the first stages of a relationship and it sparked thoughts in me about how frustrating the first stages of attraction can be, with all the uncertainty and infatuation that goes along with it. My original idea was to develop an abstract piece about the awkwardness of first liking someone, and the interviews were originally just research for the piece. I had not intended to use narrative in my film but the dialogue was so true and relatable that it developed into several narratives about peoples’ individual journeys and experiences - I felt it got my point across in a more successful way. My original idea was non-narrative with animals so it seemed like a natural progression, once I chose to use the interviews, that the voices should be narrated by the peoples’ animal counterparts. I paired each animal with an unlikely partner to exemplify the randomness of love and how it is the connection of personalities and not your background that attracts you to someone.

Crackle: How did you choose the animals for each voice? Was it something in the quality of the individual voice, or something that each person actually said?

JP: The animals were chosen based on what was said by each individual person. For example, when choosing a character for Steve Bowler it seemed obvious to me to make him a bloodhound because of his obsession with how [his crush] smelled. Similarly, with the shark character I felt it would be interesting to use a menacing species to portray a story of shyness and awkward humour. All of the characters have been matched mainly based on what they have said, even if the connection seems somewhat vague to the viewer.

Crackle: Are these real stories? Who is telling them—your friends? Was it hard to get them to open up?

JP: These are completely genuine stories. I interviewed about 30 people in total, ranging from my housemates to my sister’s housemates to an acting troupe in my home village. I am naturally quite a shy person so the main challenge for me was getting people to open up to someone who was clearly very nervous. The final voices are mainly that of the Shenley Drama Group, a bunch of amateur performers who were happy to disclose their most personal anecdotes (except the pony, who was a friend from university who provided a story of heartache, something that the film was missing until just before it went into the final animation stage). The sound edit went through so many stages before it was finalised, and a lot of stories [were] cut at the last minute. [One was] about a boy who would play the theme from Titanic on a walkman everyday to the girl he loved whilst reading poetry that he wrote in the hopes that she would one day return his affections.

Crackle: Who was your first crush, and what animals would he (or she, not to presume anything) and you be in My First Crush?

JP: My first crush was my friend’s older brother, as I’m sure a lot of first crushes are! He used to tease me and bully me a lot and I thought he was the best thing that ever happened. I found my diary from that period in my life recently and I sound absolutely infatuated with him. It was literally all-consuming. I suppose perhaps we would be quite a mismatch of animals, like the bird and the polar bear, because when I ran into him later in life it was clearly never meant to be and it was just because of the circumstances at the time that I was so obsessed with him.

Crackle: Who are the three most crush-worthy animated characters of all time?

JP: That’s a great question! I think everyone has a secret crush on some pretty shameful animated leading men or women. I personally don’t have a crush on this lady but Jessica Rabbit would definitely have to be one of them. I am still fascinated by how they made her dress so unbelievably sparkly in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and she is probably the sexiest women around in both the animated and real world. As for male leads, I would have to say that I have always had a soft spot for the boy in Anastasia; he has a somewhat Hugh Grant-esque quality about him that I loved when I was younger. The second would have to be Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty; that whole film is so beautiful and I think he blends in pretty well… although I don’t see it so much now as I did back when I was young and impressionable! For my final crush, would it be wrong to say grown-up Simba in the Lion King? [Ed: Only if it's wrong for us to say grown-up Nala in the Lion King. That kitten's got claws!]

Crackle: Your website says you’re being shown at SXSW—is My First Crush being shown?

JP: Yes, My First Crush is being shown. It is really quite exciting that the film is getting so much exposure; never could I have imagined that it would be so popular! It has really made me very happy.

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