We caught up with Mike Heynes, creator of Sticklers Wood at his Newtown studio for a tour of the set and an insight as to why a man in his late twenties is still playing with dolls...

Legends of Kirkville -- New Zealand Fringe Festival March 2002
A new animated film from Mike Heynes is to feature in the 2002 New Zealand Fringe festival. See www.festival.org.nz for details.

Mike's Top 10 Records

The Ramones - It's Alive
Iggy Pop- The Idiot
The Velvet Underground and Nico
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Television - Marquee Moon
The Cramps - RockininReelininAucklandNewZealand
The Birthday Party - Junkyard
Beck- Mutations
Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation

Motive: You've recently completed Sticklers Wood, but this isn't your first animated film. Your earlier works show a similar fascination with re-creating familiar environments.

Mike Heynes: Yes, these plastic worlds have come to symbolise a number of things to me - obsession, escapism, entertainment and nostalgia. They reflect my interests and concerns: Politics, Global Resistance, Television, consumerism and Rock'n'Roll.

I'm fascinated by consumer culture, I like shopping. I like John Waters and the Ramones. I've been working with toys for years - building installations and making badly animated videos.

So why dolls?

I like trash and get sick of excusing the fact. I began working with toys because they offered a three dimensional variation on my previous photo collage work. They also provided a link to video and (as a result) life for my toy assemblages. I never thought of myself as a filmmaker and first showed my work in a gallery environment.

Is working with toys restrictive?

The figures' limited movements and static facial expressions have become a trademark. I'm not trying to kid anyone here - these are toys.

The 'stage' format with a three sided set and inconsistent lighting creating glare off the figures are intended to remind the viewer that this film is made in somebody's bedroom - the attitude is bigger than the budget.

The use of toys references the world outside of the animation, symbolic of a disposable society. The toys are sourced mainly from the Warehouse and $2 shops. The stores provide both inspiration and a never ending supply of cheap materials.

This comes with an ideological cost however, cheap imports from China undercut local manufacturers and put people here out of work. These issues were investigated in my first film and related installation - $2 Roger: Cut-Proce SuperHero.

You favour a jarring editing style in Sticklers Wood, is this part of your "trash" ethos?

I started out shooting on VHS and editing with two videos, these limitations provided a trademark editing style using clean cuts and constant reframing. I was stubbornly low-fi, because that's what I had and I wasn't going to let 'the rules' get in the way. Now, with added computer power I can make technically better films with less noise and tighter editing without compromising the aesthetic I have developed.

I am a great believer in the DIY approach - these materials and a VHS video are readily available and anybody could do this if they really wanted to.

What's next?

I'm working on a RAD to be screened later this year with Dave Clark, Miss Western Suburbs. It's a boy-meets-girl, leads-to-excess, leads-to-tragedy piece.

You can email Mike at: actionpackedfilms@hotmail.com