Swan Lake – An Artist’s Statement

Swan Lake is a stop-motion animated homage to my beloved childhood stuffed toy, Snoopy.

From my earliest memories, Snoopy was everywhere. My mother imprinted him on me with the sheets on my first “big boy” bed—complete with matching curtain panels! I don’t even remember when I got my Snoopy stuffed animal, but I do remember loving him dearly. I would visit the Snoopy store at the mall to buy him outfits and even a director’s chair. Around the same time, I was falling in love with animation. A Charlie Brown Christmas was my first crush, of course, but It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was true love. To this day, I watch it regularly and consider it one of the greatest pieces of television ever created.

When I was in sixth grade, my mother sold my stuffed Snoopy at a garage sale. I was probably too preoccupied with tween interests to really notice, but years later, when I was in college, she admitted that she regretted selling him. One Christmas, she gave me a brand-new one. I held onto that Snoopy until my godson was born and then passed it on to him. He loved it—literally—to pieces.

A few years ago, during my artist’s residency with LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council), I had the sudden compulsion to make a wool-felted doppelgänger puppet of Snoopy. I had no idea why. At the time, I was making short stop-motion animated films and creating my own wool-felted puppets as my actors, so I suppose Snoopy felt like a natural extension of that practice.

After I finished the puppet, I began ruminating on what to do with it. Animation was the obvious answer—but of what? I buried myself in research and stumbled upon Travels with Charlie Brown: The Making of Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown. Something Bill Melendez said struck me: he explained that Charlie Brown can’t touch the top of his head because his arms are too short, so the only character they could really fool around with was Snoopy. He can be rubbery. That made me think—what happens when you translate a hand-drawn cartoon into stop-motion animation with a real-world puppet? Suddenly, there are physical restrictions. I realized it would be a fun challenge to make my woolen doppelgänger come to life.

Again, I was led back to the wonders of animation from my childhood. I thought about how Fantasia might have been responsible for introducing children to classical music—how else would I have learned Night on Bald Mountain? And how, in What’s Opera, Doc?, Bugs Bunny brought Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung to life. So I wondered: how could Snoopy add to that legacy? He had always been a dancer, so what iconic ballet could he perform? Eventually, I landed on Swan Lake and Odette’s solo.

I researched the choreography, created a tutu for him, designed a minimal ballet stage set, and got to work animating. I really put him through his paces—and broke the puppet five times! First a shoulder, then a leg, then a rigging point, and so on, until his woolen body was a Frankensteinian mess. But I completed that version as a glorified animatic to test the lighting, blocking, camera angles, and movement. Then I consulted puppet makers, stop-motion riggers, animation professionals, and a choreographer.

I meticulously rebuilt him, starting with a well-constructed armature skeleton, lovingly wrapping it in wool until he was restored—stronger and better than ever. I adjusted his tutu to highlight the ballet moves from his stubby-legged form. And then, with even more care and devotion, I animated him once again, bringing his performance of Swan Lake to the screen.

Matthew Sandager