Adam Foulkes and Alan Smith.

Smith & Foulkes, This Way Up (Via E-mail)

AF: First of all, how did you find out that you were nominated for an Academy Award? How did you celebrate when you received the news?

Smith & Foulkes: We had a feeling we were down to the last ten, and that the announcement was imminent so we went and hid in a local bar. Then our phones started buzzing. A lot of the guys who worked on the film are working on a commercial job with us at the moment so one-by-one they all joined us at the bar for a cheeky afternoon session. Everybody was a bit stunned to tell the truth.

AF: How long ago did you start work on This Way Up? How large was your crew?

S&F: We started in late 2007 with a view to finishing in April 2008, which was a bit tight but we do love a good deadline to get us going. Production didn't really move into top gear until the start of the year. We had a dedicated team of five or six but a lot of other people at Nexus helped out as and when they could. Modelers were working at Mighty Nice (the Sydney arm of the Nexus studio) during our night so that we had lots to see when we arrived each morning, then we had all day to change our minds ready for them to start all over when we went home. A truly international production.

AF: Did you imagine that you would receive this much positive attention for your work?

S&F: We've had a fair amount of success on the commercials award circuit but we really never expected this much attention for our first real shot at making our own short film. Five months isn't really long enough to make this type of film so we're really glad that people see beyond the odd dodgy render and rushed edit, and just enjoy the story. We knew we would have to bash it out if we were ever going to make it, and I think it shows in parts, but that's all part of the process.

This Way Up. © Nexus Prods.

AF: The subject matter for your film is very timeless, and reminded me of classic animated shorts from the 1930s. Were there any films or shorts from which you drew specific inspiration, or was there any particular tone that you were hoping to achieve?

S&F: The film that stuck in our minds was a 1970s British film called The Plank, where two guys have to safely deliver, er, a plank. But neither of us can recall ever actually seeing it. It was just the idea of a very simple task that appealed. Then we took it to as far an extreme as possible. We just wanted to find the right amount of story to tell in eight minutes. I think the work of many British comedy double acts have seeped into our subconscious, especially Morecambe and Wise and The Two Ronnies. All very silly stuff I suppose.

AF: How many short films have you directed in the past?

S&F: When we were at the Royal College of Art we each made two films that were really just graphic experiments in moving images. It kept us happy at the time but left the audience pretty cold. It was then that we hit upon the idea of keeping the visually experimental approach but also telling a story, with some gags. As we got more involved with commercial work we often had the chance to write what we considered our own short films, as we did on Lemony Snickett and the Motorola Bunny. But we were always developing our scripts as well, we just never had any time to put them into action.

AF: Do you plan to continue working on animated shorts for the time being, or do you have other career aspirations?

S&F: I think as a filmmaker you are always looking to test yourself in new ways and the only way to develop your directing voice is by making more films. We learned a lot making This Way Up, things that we'd like to take into a longer form project in the future. We've also been very lucky to work on some great commercial scripts over the years and we've recently been directing much more live action so we'll see where that takes us as well.

AF: Do you have any interest in experimenting with other forms of animation?

S&F: We've never seen ourselves as being restricted to any particular technique. We both started off with a graphic cut and paste attitude to making images and since then we've worked in 2D, 3D, stop-frame, puppetry and live action. The fun is to choose the technique that fits the script. 3D offers limitless possibilities in modeling, texturing and rendering, so no job need look the same as the last.

AF: Have you seen any of the other nominated films? Which ones impressed you the most?

S&F: I took my son to see Presto and he laughed hilariously all through it. So I guess that's pretty stiff competition. And Oktapodi almost could be a Pixar short, such is the tightness of the script and delivery of the gags. Maybe it's the "Year of the Slapstick."

AF: Will you be attending the Academy Awards? Whom would you most like to meet when you're in Hollywood?

S&F: Yeah we're off to the party. It all sounds fairly surreal. Would be fun to hassle a few of the great directors about their view of the world.

AF: Have you begun work on any new projects since the completion of This End Up?

S&F: This End Up? That sounds like a rather smutty version of the original. Might be a sequel in there.

AF: Oops... sorry about that.

S&F: Actually we have just finished a Super Bowl Coke commercial [Avatar], and we're developing longer form scripts of our own as well.