Beth Cloutier on Building World Peace: Interview
New York Filmmaker Screened at Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival
Jun 25, 2009
In 2007, Beth Cloutier created an animated film in her New York City apartment. Using bits of coloured clay and a camera, she created a 3-minute stop-motion sequence featuring flags of the world interacting with one another. Reflecting on her experiences traveling the world as a cinematographer, she called it "Building World Peace."
In Part #1 of this exclusive interview, Cloutier talked about how the short came together and the connotations of clay. In this installment, she discusses the jazz/worldbeat score, and where she'd like to take her concept.
Who did the music for "Building World Peace"?
“(Bassist) Derek Neivergelt: he’s originally from Switzerland but he’s based in New York City. He was the composer and music director for this. He’s worked with Coldplay and Herbie Hancock; he and I worked closely together. We had several amazing musicians play on this: all internationally known jazz players."
What were you hoping to accomplish with the music?
“I wanted a cross-cultural piece. If you look at the film, and the different countries, the patterns I developed, there are areas where it focused on the Middle East, others focused more on Africa, or Latin America. And then some are all mixed in. So I wanted to create a musical piece that highlighted those certain areas, but crossing it with a Western or Latin flair, weaving in and out musically with the film.”
Did you have specific ideas of what you wanted, or did you suggest things in more general terms?
“Yeah, I had specific ideas for what I wanted. Certain things, I wanted an African rhythm and feel. Other pieces needed to be Middle Eastern, or Indian sounding. Derek came up with some really great stuff, along with the musicians we worked with. I said, “Here’s what I’m looking for, go with it.” And they just went with it, and I think they did a phenomenal job.
“I’m very open to dialogue and creative collaboration. I’m not one of these: “You must do this, you must do that!” types. (laughs)
“I think things form better out of a collaborative atmosphere, so I opened the floor up, sat in with them as they were playing and make suggestions. Then they’d say, “What about this?” and I said, “Yeah. Great idea: let’s do it.”
What were your artistic inspirations?
“This just came out of my head. The whole film literally popped in my head one day. It was the culmination of everything I had ever seen in the past couple of years, came and went ‘Shoop!’ (laughs)
“It’s a very simple concept and I’d really like to develop a program with it, and put together an international traveling show. I’m hoping to get the interest and sponsorships to make a book that we can drop out a plane and into countries where you’re not supposed to go and do that, and hope the kids will read it.
“There’s a book called Three Cups of Tea, about Greg Mortenson who built the schools in Pakistan . . .”
I’ve read it. It’s wonderful.
“I’m trying to join in on that idea, but in a different way. I haven’t even contacted Mortenson; I’m in the development process right now. The treatment’s been written, I’ve talked with some book publishers . . . we’ll see what happens.
“I’ve had to put so much on hold since my mom passed away and I’m only now starting to look at everything again. Going forward, going forward! (laughs)”
With this project, if you had a magic wand that could make everything happen the way you wanted it to, what would be your idea?
“My vision would be to have it in the poorest countries in the world, where they lack education, to create a flip-book that kids could see. They’d have stories, in every language, about people doing good things in their community, but from every country.
“Some form of communication, to get these kids from the poorest places, even in this country and America. There are places even in the US where the kids are very poor and they’re not well educated, and they can’t read or write. I would like to communicate these very important principles and ideas to them. That would be my ideal thing, because education is the only way out of poverty.”
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