Original-Cin Q&A: Memoir of a Snail Director Adam Elliot on Garden Gastropods' Appeal

Once every so often an animated film comes along that captures your heart.  Memoir of A Snail is a beautiful stop animation charmer narrated by Sarah Snook (Succession) who voices the lead character Grace as an adult. 

It centers around Grace and Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), twins who become separated when their parents die and there is no one to look after them.

Grace, a lonely hoarder collects snails among other things) and tells her woes to her favorite pet snail Sylvia, named after Sylvia Plath.

Bonnie Laufer spoke to writer/director Adam Elliot about his inspiration for the film.

CLICK HERE to read Liam Lacey’s review of Memoji of a Snail.

Memoir of a Snail opens November 15 in Toronto (TIFF Lightbox) and Montreal.The film also opens: November 22 in Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Kingston, November 29 in Ottawa, and throughout the fall in other cities.

Director Adam Elliot and friend

ORIGINAL-CIN: I don't think I'll ever look at a snail the same way again. What is it about snails that captivates you?

ADAM ELLIOT: There's many things I like about snails.  I think primarily I chose snails because they are trapped in their shells. That's sort of what Grace the protagonist in the film has been doing her whole life.  She feels safe and secure in her little world. 

Originally I was going to call the film, Memoir of A Lady Bird, but then that film Lady Bird came out. But also, Ladybirds are a bit saccharine and cutesy.  I love the swirl of a snail shell, and I thought that would be a really lovely visual motif to have through the film and it’s symbolic of life going full circle.

I also found out that snails can't reverse. They can only move forward. I thought that was really fascinating.

O-C:  You are a master of stop-animation, but I feel that to make these movies you have to have the patience of a saint.

ELLIOT: Well, I am no saint and  I'm very impatient. (Laughs). 

I actually gave up animating a while ago because I just don't have the patience. So I have my minions doing it for me now.

But look, I think probably the most challenging part of the whole process is actually the financing. The rest is quite meditative.

Yes, you certainly have to be a certain type of person to go into this crazy art form but I love the writing process. I spent at least three years writing this one, 16 drafts and animation is so proscribed that you really have to lock things in at the very early script stage. There's a little bit of room for improvisation, but not much. Once the storyboard and the script are locked off, then  you just have to color it in.

O-C: Grace’s story is quite heart-breaking, and so many of the other characters in the film have had some trauma. We really do root for them.  Were they based on anyone in your life? 

 ELLIOT: Grace is based partially on my mother and my father, who were hoarders, but also a close friend of mine, who was born with a cleft palate. As a child, she had a lot of operations on her mouth, and at school, was bullied and teased, and so she had a very traumatic childhood.

Thankfully, she grew up to be this very well adjusted adult, quite an extrovert, actually. I was fascinated by how does someone rebuild themselves and transform and get that confidence back?

I was going to make a short film about her, and actually, she came to the London Film Festival. She lives in London now and she gave me her blessing. So, yeah, all my characters are based on real people. I'm not very good at inventing characters from thin air. I have to steal from my family and friends. They're always very nervous when I start writing, especially how they're going to look right as an animated character.

O-C: You have assembled quite the amazing voice talent for the film, including Sarah Snook (Succession)  and Kodi Smit-McPhee. When you start thinking about what your character is going to look like, do you have the actors already in place or do you already have an idea what the animated character is going to look like so that it doesn’t resemble the actor?

ELLIOT: Sometimes they feed into each other, but  I'm a very linear filmmaker, so once I've written the script, I start the storyboard. That's when I start to really play around with what they're going to look like.

I am also the production designer. The actors don't really inform how the characters look, but sometimes, by coincidence, they look a similar way. Sarah has a very  horizontal face.

I call it the Bert and  Ernie factor. Some people have an Ernie face. Some people have a Bert face, which was right for Grace. Sarah's got such an endearing face. She's got these little squinty eyes, she blushes, and she's got a few freckles that worked perfectly for Grace’s look.

But the way I choose my actors too is when I get an idea for a voice, I go and watch those actors' other films and shut my eyes. I try to imagine the character and the voice coming together, sometimes they don't marry.

So there's hours and hours of just listening to get it right in my imagination.  My favorite actor was Dominique Pinon who's the lead in Jean-Pierre Jeunet  films. He was wonderful to work with, I just adored him. He  knew exactly what I wanted. We were very lucky. We got our wish list and got everyone we wanted.

O-C: As I mentioned earlier, the amount of work on a film like this is mind-boggling. Every little movement and character placing takes hours. Yes, of course, you have people helping you do this, but when you're done how on earth do you decompress?

ELLIOT: To be honest, I haven't had a chance to decompress yet, because as soon as we finished, we had to enter the Annecy Animation Festival, which is the Cannes of Animation.

We’ve been at back to back festivals since, but I do know how I feel about it all. I'm feeling a lot of relief at the moment, even though I'm exhausted and traveling a lot. I feel like my job is now done, and the eight years of worrying is now over, and the baby's born.

I can't change how it looks. It's got all its fingers and toes. It's been well received. It's not an ugly baby, not that there’s anything wrong with that. But, I think of relief, rather than elation or anything, I just feel I can sleep. Finally.