Editor’s Notes:
In this insightful interview with Steve Cutts, the acclaimed illustrator and animator opens up about his artistic journey, his influences, and his commitment to creating socially reflective art. Cutts discusses the evolution of his unique style, inspired by vintage cartoons, and delves into the driving forces behind his commentary on consumerism, technology, and environmental issues. He also shares his creative process, the challenges of commissioned versus self-initiated work, and his belief in the power of art to inspire social change.
About his career and style:
What inspired you to get into illustration and animation? Was there a particular moment or person that influenced your decision to pursue this Path?
I’ve always been drawing as far back as I remember, so it always seemed like a natural path to follow. As a kid I would always be painting or sculpting something, which then progressed to digital creations later on when I could finally afford a home PC.
I first got into animation when I was working at an ad agency in East London. Animation wasn’t officially part of my job description there, my role was illustrator / storyboard artist. It was an unusual position for the time, as most agencies would hire freelance illustrators on a temporary basis, but I was part of a small in-house illustration team.
Whenever I had any downtime I would experiment endlessly in Photoshop and After Effects, making short animation clips, which eventually progressed into making a few experimental short films. It became a running joke that I would do more personal animation than actual agency work, so it was clear I had a passion for it as an art form.
Your work clearly critiques modern society. What drives you to explore themes like consumerism, technology, and environmental degradation?
I tend to agree with the idea that part of the role of being an artist is to comment on the times we’re living in, that art should mean something and be a reflection to the world around us. Even if I try to make an illustration that is idiosyncratic or abstract it often ends up reflecting these themes in some way.
Art can be a powerful force that changes people’s perspectives, so although it’s not an obligation, I feel a certain sense of responsibility in highlighting some of the issues we face as a society.
How would you describe your artistic style, and how has it evolved over the years? Who or what have been your biggest influences?
I guess my style is somewhere between vintage comic books and the rubber hose style of the 30’s and 40’s. These days my style is a bit broader, in the last few years I’ve leaned towards more painted and graphic novel styles, experimenting with various textures and line work.
It’s difficult to pin down any particular artist I took my main influence from…Some of the more notable influences obviously would be Fleischer cartoons, especially in my early work and Robert Crumb also influenced my drawing to some degree. But my style is probably inspired from countless sources over the years, whether consciously or subconsciously.
You’ve worked both as a freelancer and within agencies. Do you notice a diference in how your creativity flows in these two environments?
Definitely. Historically I’ve only worked within agencies, ie actually working in the office, a few times early in my career. But generally most of my projects since then have been completed remotely as a freelancer working from my own studio.
With the agency work I did back then, I would usually be given a creative brief, which I was free to contribute to creatively, but overall it was my job to interpret that idea I’d been given and bring it to life. Physically working in an agency I found more distracting than working in my studio, where I had the space to focus more.
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SELF INITIATED FILMS AND COMMISSIONED WORK:
Commissioned work is far more pressurized obviously, as it’s almost always on a tight schedule. So time restraints often dictate only a small amount of time to formulate an idea and present it for approval, often just a week or two, and is sometimes the most challenging part of making a film. Also with client work, my ideas have to flow around set parameters and ideas, which is something that forces me to find different creative solutions to problems, so it’s challenging in a good way.
Naturally on self initiated films my workflow is more efficient as it’s only me working on it, there are less constraints. I don’t have to follow a more rigid working structure, wait for feedback / approval on work or overly demonstrate the styles or ideas I have in mind, I can just jump straight in there and get into it. It’s a very different experience, I have the luxury of time and even some of the major elements of a film can be changed right up to the last minute, if I think it works better for the final film.
About his creative process:
What does your creative process look like? Do you have any specific rituals or approaches when starting a new project?
For personal projects I tend to have several concepts on the go at any one time, so I can keep revisiting each one intermittently and I see over time which of them prevail and continue to resonate. Sometimes if I focus on one idea for too long it’s easy to get lost in the details and lose perspective, so I find it better to work on something else and then come back to it with a fresh approach.
Most projects start with just a few rough notes from a brainstorm, the main elements of what I’m trying to convey. I have reams of random ideas and doodles, snippets of concepts that have the potential to turn into something. It can be a stream of consciousness which starts as something but ends up somewhere completely different and often it’s the cross pollination of overlapping ideas that can spark a much bigger concept or narrative.
The challenge is translating ideas into a more concrete narrative. There’s a gulf between those first chaotic, exciting ideas and the reality of how they fit together as a cohesive story the audience can relate to. Sometimes a narrative for a film will fall into place very quickly and almost seems to write itself, other times things get lost in translation.
If something isn’t working, I’ll leave it and come back to it at a later time, often being in a different mindset and having completely different thoughts about it at that point. Even if it’s unsalvageable, I’ll take it back to the initial elements that excited me in the first place and use them as a starting point to take it in a new direction.
Usually I will expand the notes into a narrative story with a few drawings and when I’m happy with it I’ll create a storyboard. But it’s not a rigid process, there’s been times where I have only got as far as a loose set of ideas and a sketch or two before jumping straight into the animatic stage to see if an idea has legs. The animatic is probably the most important stage of pre production, where I get to see how a film comes together and is the final reveal of whether it works narratively and visually on screen or not.I usually put together a very rough motion storyboard in After Effects along with some temp music if needed – It’s a super quick process to aid visualization, created using only simple line sketches that I can switch and edit on the fly, and this way I get to see the film emerge in real time.I then create the style boards for the overall look of the film, with concept sketches of characters and backdrop designs. Normally I will complete two or three finished shots of the film as well as the finalized character designs, and use these as my guide template establishing the rules for the overall visual style.
Finally, it is then deciding when a film is finished. Nowadays I will think it’s done, only to spot something else that can be improved or tweaked, then something else, and so on…It’s an endless cycle, so it’s knowing when to stop. Usually the the end of a project for me is dominated by ever evolving lists of scene amendments and fixes that seem to get longer rather than shorter. They say Art is never finished, only abandoned, but I know once a film is out there in the wild, anything I’m not entirely happy with I have to live with, so I have to settle for the best I can do in the time I have.
MUSIC SEEMS TO PLAY A BIG ROLE IN YOUR ANIMATIONS. HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT CHOOSING SOUNDTRACKS FOPR YOUR projects?
I listen to the music options that I’m considering using for a film as I’m working on it, so often I will be subconsciously noting tracks that work, even if they are just the starting point for the kind of music I might want to use. With some films, like ‘Happiness’, I knew the track I wanted to use very early on and had a very specific vision for it, so I was very lucky to be able to create and edit the animation together in tandem with the music as I constructed the film.
Others, like ‘A Brief Disagreement’, the choice of music was a more difficult decision and the soundtrack was chosen a lot later in the process after whittling down a bigger number of potential tracks.
The soundtrack has a huge subliminal impact on how the audience interprets the film and represents a chance to create another layer of resonance that brings to life what is happening on screen, so for me it’s important to choose a soundtrack that not only crafts the tone and evokes the mood of the film, but won’t distract from the message that’s being conveyed.
This has been part of my thought process in the past when I’ve chosen classical tracks, as they are evocative, shaping and communicating the tone and atmosphere of the film without detracting from it.
About his vision of the modern world:
You frequently touch on topics like consumerism and technological disconnection. What’s your take on where society is headed in these areas?
I think we’re really at a pivotal stage in these areas. Consumerism and tech are now so heavily entwined, the algorithms know what we want before we know it, we’re very manipulated in that way. We are also continually replacing electrical products with upgrades more and more frequently, with e-waste now at roughly 50 million tonnes worldwide each year.
There’s the FOMO on the latest gadgets and it’s the corporations that make consumers feel they’re missing out if they don’t have the latest upgrade. In the long term it’s not sustainable, so at some point we’ll have to change or be forced to change.
Socially, tech is very much a double edged sword obviously. It’s this amazing thing that allows us to keep in contact with friends and family wherever we are on the planet, enables us to communicate with people we would never have the chance to meet otherwise and is a pathway to expression and connection. Alternatively it makes it easier to avoid real life interactions by getting our social fix online. By replacing real interactions with online ones, it can foster a sense of disconnection and loneliness. Ironic, given how hyperconnected we are now virtually.
But socially at least, it isn’t necessarily the tech that’s the problem, but our dependence on it. It can be an asset when used in moderation. Looking ahead, especially with the introduction of AI integrated into nearly everything and people relying on that to take on more and more of their workload, and even mimic and act as a stand-in for human connection, I can easily see that dependence growing.
If you had to boil your work down to one key message or lesson, what would it be?
If nothing else, it would simply be to consider how we can make a positive change to the world we’re living in, by any means we can, both in regards to the planet and each other. We’re living in a pivotal point in history, and that our actions now will define the world for generations to come.
Do you have any ideas or visions on how humanity could break the “loop” it seems to be trapped in, and how we might finally bring an end to wars and Violence?
Ideally, we need to stop seeing the other side as enemies, and to treat one another with respect. The issue is both sides are fighting for what they believe is right, but we need to stop forcing rhetorics and ideologies onto each other.
Sadly I think as long as mankind exists there will always be war in some form, even though it is known that humans are less violent today than they have been in the past. The issue is the technology we use to wage war and kill is getting so much more efficient and devastating. Yet we still remain with the basic drives, ego and lust for power and dominance that we have always had.
Perhaps our best hope is that we can one day resolve our differences and keep conflict to a minimum, even if only due to the threat of our mutually assured destruction.
Future projects and reflections:
Your animations often deliver a strong visual and emotional impact. How do you decide on the message or feeling you want to convey with each piece?
I think about what is the overall tone I am looking for in the piece I’m trying to create, as well as asking what it is I want the audience to take away from this… What kind of narrative works best for the story I’m trying to tell. I try to put myself in the position of the characters in the film to see what feelings they evoke and what emotion their actions are likely to induce in the audience.
A lot of my work uses subversive humor to convey some of the realities of the world around us, some view it more on an entertainment level while others are left with a sense of unease and questioning.
Obviously the style, colour palette and lighting all play a huge role in establishing the mood and memotional impact. In ‘A Brief Disagreement’ the sky is a fiery red throughout, representing the violence, danger and bloodshed of war that dominates our history but also the love and passion that humanity is capable of.
In Happiness I designed the film largely with a pastel grey / green palette with the only colour mainly being in the advertising and products, the shiny things designed to draw our attention. Another stylistic choice was made later in the film, enforcing the narrative by employing a Disney-esque style to visually express how the main character is feeling at that point.
I have my own intentions when making a film but I also know that viewers will interpret my work in different ways and people will always look for different meanings and interpretations regarding the intent of a piece, which is how art should be.
It is one of the exciting things when putting a film out – it’s a strange feeling to work on something alone or with a small group of people for so long, and suddenly it’s out there in the world with peoples different takes on it.
Many of your works critique the negative aspects of modern society. Do you believe that art can influence social change or shape public perception?
I believe it can through raising awareness on critical issues and by bringing important themes into the zeitgeist.
Art has the power to change people’s perspectives and the way they see the world, evoking feelings and emotions in a way that words alone might not convey.
In that way it’s a form of expression that provides a unique way to understand another point of view and is an invitation to talk about and solve the issues we face, bringing people together in the process and hopefully inspiring social change.