I met filmmaker, artist, and animator Daisy Edwards at The Nickel Series, a short film festival that debuted in New York last February. Edwards’ She’s A Rebel, a stop-motion animated short about a female pirate, was an audience favorite. Last Saturday I touched base with Edwards via Skype to talk about women in film, animation, and pirates! Below is a transcript of our conversation.
I really loved your film. Everybody in the audience was instantly drawn to She’s A Rebel. Could you feel it?
I did! That was the first public screening that the film has had outside of the animation community so to me it was a much more realistic viewing of the film. It’s not a bunch of people who seem to know how to make a film or [who are] looking at the details. It was nice to see people react the way they were supposed to react and feel it, which is really lovely.
Yeah, I think you get a lot of feedback just from being in an audience without necessarily people talking about it. You feel how the film is being received—
Yeah! Definitely. It’s been wild to just have such an experience. In 2005 and 2007 were the last times I’d had a public screening and I’d forgotten it’s such an amazing experience being in the audience, hoping that people are going to like it as much as you do. And then having such an amazing outcome.
It seems to me like animation is a pretty male-dominated field.
Yes, I’m learning that in L.A. I’ve met a lot more people who are working in the actual industry out here. In New York, I was surrounded by a lot of freelance artists and really didn’t get into the nitty-gritty industry. So I was doing my own thing. But out here I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more female creators over the next number of years, which is really exciting. I know of a lot of people that I follow, a lot of women who are coming up out of school who are in their early to mid-twenties, that are really getting out there which is pretty cool. Like Comedy Network is a lot of female-driven, sorry, it’s still working on creative shows, which are. So it’s really exciting. But it’s still new.
Can you tell me a little bit about the origins of She’s A Rebel?
I read the story of Anne Bonney when I was 17. My godmother was an author and she did a lot of kids’ books. She had written some pieces about pirates in a book had researched it all and wanted to do a piece about lady pirates. She told me about it and I was instantly drawn to the idea of these women who lived in a male-dominated society, and just did their own thing and did what they had to do. And the tale of Anne Bonney is a bit of a unique one because she actually teamed up with another female pirate who was about ten years older, called Mary Read. And they just had this amazing adventure and it spanned maybe a year. They both dressed in men’s clothing. They both earned their keep on the ship, and they were tougher than all the guys. The final stance to them was, all the male pirates were too drunk on the ship to fight against the governor and his navy. And it was the two women who fought all the men off for 45 minutes until they were taken over.
When you hear a story like that – and I’m very pro-woman, a feminist — I just went with it and thought, we need to see this story. And I’m pretty gobsmacked that we’re at this point now that that story might help us empower ourselves.
I too found it exciting from that perspective. Something about the film made me completely identifywith her character. I know that this is not necessarily a children’s film, but how many animated kid movies do we see in which we see a female character like that? I mean, there’s some that are coming out.
Exactly! I mean this was supposed to be more adult, but my Mom showed it to her friends with kids and they loved it. Apparently nude puppets aren’t such a problem with some kids. [laughs] But that’s something that I’m working on, more family-oriented content. We do see a lot of films that have these great girl characters but they’re secondary to another character or they push a very specific stereotype. I know Brave was supposed to be this big wonderful thing that was breaking the boundaries for females in films but it didn’t really go that far. It was definitely not quite there.
I think it’s going to take some time. The industry is so focused on the fact that girls will watch stuff with boys, but boys won’t watch stuff with girls in it! And at least in animation that is the biggest factor. I’ve had meetings where they’ve told me to pitch to boys 7 to 11, and girls will watch it, cause I did when I was a kid. So I think that it is the same thing right now. With a lot of more female creatives coming up, hopefully that will be shifting. I know so many women don’t want to be doing this, and I have worked for women and we can change the world. At least in film. But it definitely will take time because there are all these executives who make the decisions.
I definitely thought to myself this is very adult content, but I was so excited by her character that I wanted to show it to my nieces. See, I think the seven year old could handle some of that stuff and I think she would love it.
Yeah! My favorite thing is my Mom came to me and said, “I showed it to Thomas, who’s 11.” And I was like, “Really? You showed it?” And here I was thinking I made something that’s really adult. And she said, “Oh, she came out naked and he started laughing sooo hard!” And I was, “Oh, I guess that’s okay then.” And I kind of liked that ‘cause I think, well. I’m from Australia so we have a lot of different censorship rules, but I think in America it’s really tight. I mean, the idea of showing a kid that film would be… I see it like a lot of American people wouldn’t accept that, more middle America. On the coasts, it’s a little bit more open, but yeah, it blew my mind that a kid watched it. And he understood it all and he loved it! And it was also a little boy who watched this girl! That’s a really great thing. That opened my eyes.
I’m hoping that my next thing, I’m trying to focus on having a kid as a central character. And it will be a girl going through, well, I don’t really like this phrase but a change of life experience. It’s a goal of mine, using fantasy as a tool to explore how as a kid especially these days, you’re pretty much handed everything. And I think this is something that Hayao Miyazaki did pretty well. He made Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke. Animated films, beautiful films, and they all have central female characters. And they’re all awesome, bad-ass girls that they become that. They’re not immediately that. So I want to try and bring that into the Western culture. And show that it is a possibility, we can have these awesome female characters that everyone likes because we are half the population and… we are awesome.
Have you thought about the possibility of expanding She’s A Rebel into a feature film?
Yes.
What have been some of the challenges, other than the ones about it being a female character?
Yeah, well, that was funny. When I was making the film, I was working out of a studio. I’m very close friends with one of the producers. She’s a woman and she said, If you would want me to pitch a feature film, what would it be? And I said, I want to pitch Anne Bonney as a feature because with Mary, the other character in the film, that’s just such a great story there! And I like the idea of [the film] being gritty, because pirates are terrible people, and I wanted to show that. But we romanticize them so much the idea of the blood spilling, the feeling goes into the carnal need of expressing ourselves.
And she pointblank told me that she wouldn’t be able to pitch that. It was one of the big production companies that I was pitching to. Anyway, she said that she hates the fact that she has to say it, but that would not be the film that I can pitch because of the female lead character. So while I had to take a lot of that out so it’d be more family-friendly, it still blew my mind that, Jesus, these two awesome females are being really cool, doing cool stuff. They’re doing boy stuff! But [their story] wouldn’t be heard. So that seems the biggest challenge at the moment.
Also I find it more difficult because I want it to be more of an adult film. Animation is another issue to deal against, because a lot of big studios don’t want to make something that is only for adults that is animated. Japan makes a lot of great adult animation, but in America, if it’s not for kids, if it’s geared for adults, it’s independently produced. And in doing that it’s also stop-motion? That’s a big budget! There’s no real avenue for that adult theme that I want to explore. And, yes, the female lead. Even if I wanted to make it more family-friendly, it makes it really difficult, which is why I’m shifting gears and putting that one aside and working on something with a little girl, like a 12 year old. You know, we’ve had Coraline and Brave coming out, at least we’ve opened doors with that.
It’s sad that something like She’s A Rebel gets such an amazing audience response and yet you’re having a hard time making it into a feature because of the preconceptions.
Yes, and I think it will change. It might be my blind naiveté right now, but I have really high hopes that it will change because it’s something odd about it that’s honestly with the industry, all I can see is that I’m 29 and hoping to facilitate changes. I mean, everyone I’ve seen doing these projects are all quite a lot older and the executives have been in this thing a lot longer. And yet they still see it a certain way. I think both it’s just the fact that [going forward] women in film will be a bigger thing. I don’t know if you caught the Golden Globes but I absolutely loved the entire thing. Just hearing Tina Fey and Amy Poehler talk about women in film. Just hearing them being so proactive about talking about it really makes me feel like there is going to be something coming. Like we are getting out there and being more outspoken, making content that both sexes can enjoy. You know, showing that ladies can be funny and that ladies can have an adventure.
And that men can identify with a woman. I never thought of it that way, but now I realize that as we’re talking actually, you know, during this conversation. I remember as a child that if there was a movie that didn’t have a female character in it, it instantly bored me. And yet we as women end up getting used to having to identify with male characters, but that’s one of the hurdles. The fact that a lot of men – not everybody–, might have a hard time identifying with a female character.
Yeah, and I think that’s something that will take time to put out there. There’s this great article I want to find and forward to you cause I think you’ll like it. This guy wrote about the so-called “Dog and Smurf” effect. His daughter asked why there weren’t that many female dogs and he realized that whenever we see a dog, we’ll always say, “Isn’t HE cute?” We’ll associate it with the male. And the Smurf effect is that there’s only one girl Smurf and her characteristic is that she is a girl. For instance, there’s Grumpy, there’s Brainy, there’s all these things, but she’s just a girl. And that really opened my eyes. Especially the fact that it was written by a guy saying things like, “Why can’t girls be brains?” All that sort of stuff. So, for me, that’s the kind of thing I’m championing, everything that I have is female-driven. She’s A Rebel had mostly an all-female crew. Mainly because I think we were all excited because I was making it and it drew women in a lot more. My whole crew was all unpaid interns. I was doing it all on my own dime and they just helped me as much as they could. It’s great to see so many women in the arts field want to get experience and they all wanted to see things like this get out there that are female-driven in both story and crew.
And the reason that I thought of it for my little 7-year-old niece is that she’s such a little fireball! And I think she could handle it. For me the big fear was not the nudity, but the part about her shooting someone through the eye. I also loved the film because I’m from Venezuela originally and pirates were a big part of our history. Like Francis Drake is a pirate to us — a criminal –, and not a hero like he is in the English-speaking tradition. So that was another reason that I really loved She’s A Rebel.
All of that is exactly what I was going for. I just love making things about a person being bad, and you see all the bad things, because all of these sort of stories take what’s in us and do what we feel, you know. How do we empathize with this person and how do we make them likable? And have them kill someone? And, you know, everybody still roots for her. I just love that because I don’t think it’s really seen as her killing someone. It’s seen as she is doing exactly what she wants to be doing. She’s irascible, she’s [saying] I don’t care, this is me. This is who I am. And I’m just going out and doing it in a place where it’s more acceptable. And piracy is not acceptable but a female pirate is cool. That’s just something I love, taking these characters and having them do these things that I could never see myself doing, but I love her so much because she does them.
I know that you obviously need a very high budget for stop-motion animation, but have you thought about going on IndieGoGo or doing any other type of crowdfunding?
I tried a little bit with She’s A Rebel but I was really starting production and this was the sort of thing I won’t really do again, mainly because the dolls cost so much money. But it’s something that I’m considering. I’m actually thinking if I want to do something like that if I don’t get to sell my scripts and get my ideas out into the bigger industry out here. If I were doing something as an independent, I would probably do something that’s hand-drawn because it’s more affordable and something I could do myself. Unfortunately, a stop-motion feature? I’d have to raise millions, even on the low budget side. And that is just something that I don’t even want to bother with.
Right. That sounds pretty overwhelming. You write all of your scripts. What’s the process? Do you have a reader who can give you feedback on what’s working, what’s not working?
That is actually something that I’m currently figuring out. Before I had a few friends that I’d go to, but it felt like I’d been writing a little short recently. My boyfriend is also a filmmaker and writer, and he is a lot better with the more mainstream stuff. I want to make them a little more mainstream, but right now having my boyfriend read it isn’t the best. Personal differences. It’s something I’m working on because I need to find someone that has an objective opinion. Right now that’s been a little difficult.
Do you want to pitch your new project or do you want to hold back until it’s more developed?
I’ll hold back for now. The elevator pitch for that one is still a little bit all over the place. But it’s fantasy-based, and it’s mermaid-inspired. It stems from my love of The Little Mermaid. Mainly I’m hoping to hit that family balance, kind of like Coraline. [That movie] really inspired me because it was dark. It was for kids, it was for everyone. I got a lot out of it. My favorite film The Incredibles did this absolutely perfectly. It’s a different story for adults and kids — everyone will get something out of it. Brad Bird is absolutely one of my favorite filmmakers. I think that is what I’m aiming to strike, that nice balance of stuff for everyone. I think [focusing on] adults-only animation is going to be harder [to sell] than getting females in lead roles.
It is interesting that nowadays some of the fare for children is so sanitized. It really shows how much we want to shelter them.
Yes. I think the best films are those that really cater to everyone. The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, I love them and I think they offer something for everyone. But they’re really focused on angling to the kids with the music, the language. But the films now like The Incredibles and Wreck-It Ralph are more, well, the filmmakers are more like I want to watch this. So what do I want to see? Rather than, Okay what’s a joke for a kid. I think that stems more from the filmmakers loving the film so much they want to put everything into it. And something everyone would enjoy. And hopefully that just keeps packing houses. ParaNorman is another one at that. I think ParaNorman is a brilliant film. They made it like a film rather than an animated feature, which is really lovely. They didn’t try to make cute, cuddly characters. They just made real characters that have real problems. And everyone could relate to it.
Well, thank you so much, Daisy. Maybe we’ll get to see She’s A Rebel produced into a feature.