After a successful career in commercial animation, Owen Klatte decided to follow his dream of directing and animating an independent film. In Of Wood he uses stop-motion technique to tell the story of how wood has been used through history. He made the film by progressively carving through an 18-inch round of wood.
“Animating with a hammer and chisel was a unique experience,” Klatte says. “I don't know if anybody's ever done that.”
Of Wood will screen on April 16 as part of “Experiments,” a set of 11 experimental short films.
The film has been featured in more than 70 film festivals across six continents, but its Wisconsin roots are strong — and it received a Golden Badger award.
Klatte grew up in Lake Mills and went to school at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for animation. After completing school, he moved to San Francisco where he had a 25-year career in stop-motion and computer graphics animation, working on such films as James and the Giant Peach and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Klatte, now retired, lives in the Milwaukee area and teaches animation part-time at his alma mater. Of Wood was created, start to finish, in his basement.
Growing up in Wisconsin also played an important role in the inspiration for Of Wood.
“What got me excited about animation to begin with was going to the Oriental Theatre here in Milwaukee.” Klatte says. “Every year they would have this collection of short, independent films from film festivals around the world. And I was blown away by those.” Klatte was inspired by the “weird, independent stuff.”
The trees of Wisconsin were also an inspiration.
“It's a film that incorporates my love of wood and history and literature and environmentalism,” Klatte says, crediting his love of wood to trees in Wisconsin. “It also becomes a film about consumerism.”
Klatte had never done any wood sculpture or carving before, but he wanted to work with wood — “I wanted to do something that had never been done before,” Klatte says. “I eventually just came up with the idea of doing this carving frame by frame.”
To learn about wood carving Klatte took a short course at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. “I jumped in and figured out what I was going to do and just took a chance.” Klatte has learned not to worry when trying something new. “I enjoy the process of figuring it out and facing the dangers.”
Klatte initially thought the seven-minute film would take one year to shoot; it took four. It took up to three and a half hours to create a single frame (1/24 of a second). Previously the longest it had ever taken Klatte to finish one frame was an hour.
Due to the nature of the medium of wood, Klatte found it difficult to use storyboards to plan ahead. “I was always having to react with what I had carved before… I just had to kind of make it up as I went along to a very large degree.”
The film has found an audience. “It's been fun having it do well in the festivals,” Klatte says. “That's been really satisfying, to have put all that effort into this thing and actually have people understand it and then enjoy it.”
See our other 2023 Wisconsin Film Fest coverage here.
