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“I was working with Eric at the time as well. I was talking to Eric about the idea, and I really liked his art style and what he had to bring to it. So we agreed to work together on the project”

Prawta Annez

Towels Concept Art - Eric Lin

Katharine Nicholls So I suppose also you had just been through the pre-production project in which you, first of all, required to work in the style of a particular artists werent you? And you.. So you had done quite a lot of research in order to do that project and then you've done it again where you were required to sort of come up with a come up with a project. And what I think was quite interesting was I remember... I do remember a lot of detail about the development of all of our students projects, actually interestingly, I often don't remember other things, but I remember the detail of some of the development work that you went through. And one of the things that I remember particularly about Towels was that Eric, who is a very talented artist and is now working in the animation industry in Australia, and he ..he did some beautiful background paintings for the development work for Towels. And they were absolutely gorgeous.

Prawta Annez he did fantastic work

Katharine Nicholls But they weren't quite what you wanted. And I remember that there was a kind of a certain braveness, really, to the fact that you ..you kind of asked him to go back to... back to them a few times to try. And there was something that wasn't quite working for your vision of the art direction. And I thought it was brilliant at the time that you.. you were so clear on your vision that even, you know, taking these really gorgeous pictures, it still wasn't quite what you wanted. And I thought this.. this bodes quite well for being a director the next.. next year. I remember thinking that this is good because you did it in a very nice way, so that he kind of understood that although they were great paintings, they weren't quite Towels paintings. And it took a long time and quite a lot of iterations of the background designs and the character designs to get to where you wanted to get to. There was a lot of endeavour, a huge amount of all the way through study block months and months, and then all the way through the next block as well in third year.

Prawta Annez And I'm very, very flattered and happy that you think that? I was I did a good job of telling him. But honestly honest, I think it was also because he was so professional as well. I loved working with him. And actually there's a part of me that is genuinely curious how the project would have turned out if he didn't have to go back to Australia. I was... was practically gutted when he went. It turns out that he's Eramus he has to go back. I was like, I remember at one point I .. I didn't even have Camilla at that point. I was like, how am I going to do this? I was like, I'm not sure, because he kind of allowed me to. I had so many ideas I wanted to explore, but without him, I couldn't explore it fast enough and he really helped me do that and he was so open to trying it. So, I mean, I'm glad that you said that I hopefully did it my way, but he also was so open to it. And he's also like, even though, you know, we worked through it and I feel like I was like, this colour doesn't work or this pallet still doesn't doesn't kind of capture what we want. He was like, OK, I'll do it. I'll do it again. He went back to it so quickly, so many times, and he would he would turn out work so fast as well. So I think that really helped. And yeah, no, we did. We did spend a long time at preproduction. I mean, it kind of showed in the end, didn't it, because the Bible was full of work. Yeah, it was it was a lot of fun.

Katharine Nicholls It was a strong creative partnership, the two of you. And it really was. And you were quite devastated when he suddenly went away. Actually. Yeah. Maybe maybe you could tell us about the remote aspects of that because you did continue to work together a little bit. Did he continue his involvement in the project?

Prawta Annez I think unfortunately. I mean, I tried I think we both tried desperately to cling on to kind of cling on and help. And he I think he stuck with us basically to the almost the finalisation of the background, not to the final execution of backgrounds. But he stuck all the way through and he obviously was doing his own project as well by that time because he had joined another university course. And I think there's even a part he was like towards the time we got to backgrounds and I guess the final part of preproduction, he was ready, I think, even applying for jobs. So he was he was well ahead and he was basically started coming quite busy with work. But even to be honest, until the beginning of production, he kind of was still like an a person I would message at least to get some advice. So if I was a background or a character like Eric, do you think that this is ok? Do you think this works? And I think towards the end, though, unfortunately, it did end up becoming shorter and shorter replies on on both of our sides. And I do feel sad about it because I think in the very end, when we you know, at the very end when we had to decide on credits, I was like, Eric, your names gonna be right were there with us. And and I remember him saying, like, oh, you don't have to. You don't have to. I was like, oh, I felt really bad because I really wanted him to feel like it was still in his film because he was there. He was like the father, the godfather of the film, who kind of helped me through it, because if I did it by myself, it'd be something completely overcomplicated. He helped me simplify it. So I think he was he did play a big role as well. So I think that was a bit of a shame. I kind of almost wish he could come back for a couple of the award things, but..

Katharine Nicholls Maybe you can work together again. He's. Yeah, and that would be wonderful, wouldn't it, if you did connect again?

Eric Lin Prawta made it very easy to collaborate with. She’s full of ideas and open to all sorts of things. There was a lot of trial and error and blending of different ideas into something that would hopefully work. For the most part we were heading in the right direction, things flowed rather easily between us. We just needed a key influence to tie everything together. From memory, that was Henry Moore’s figure sculptures for character design, and Becky Blair’s beach paintings for overall aesthetic. The only major struggle for me was getting the colour right. Prawta had a particular vision that I wasn’t able to quite capture, even towards the end of my stay in the UK. It was still a fun project to work on though. It was a shame I had to return to Australia, I would have loved to be able to see things to the end.

Towels Expression Sheet - Eric Lin