Smoko

Director's Statement

SMOKO was an idea spawned over two mates sharing the morning break to chew the fat over whatever’s got us riled up that particular day. Politics, sport, music… kids these days etc... Almost never agreeing on anything and arguing the toss. You get the idea. It got me wondering what other people gasbag about. What gets them all hot and bothered? Where we are in Chippendale, Sydney, is a melting pot of culture with universities, shops, cafes and businesses of all shapes and sizes. There’s also a heck of a lot of birds called straw necked ibis or “bin chickens” as we know them. Always on the hunt for food scraps wherever people gather to eat… especially whatever gets thrown into the trash. In SMOKO I wanted to give voice to one of them… Brenda, the bin chicken. It turns out she’s quite a lot like the rest of us… full of shit. And then there’s our tradie, Brandon, the everyman. The bloke that knows everyone and everyone knows a Brandon. Young and fit, friendly and relaxed. The yang to Brenda’s yin and the straight to Brenda’s crooked. He provides the human connectivity to make our comedic duo relatable. Each day Brenda meets up with Brandon on a park bench to have a natter (chat). It’s their fifteen minute daily ritual. Their sacrosanct morning break known colloquially as “SMOKO”. There’s bloody songs about it it’s so sacred! I designed the look to be simple and unfussy so we can really focus on what it is that these two miscreants are jabbering on about. To let them do the talking through turn of phrase and top shelf key posed full animation. I wanted the subject matter to be relatable, feel free, casual and uncensored. it’s worth noting that every panel on SMOKO is digitally hand drawn and painted, a rare artform in animation these days due to the skill required, labour involved and time taken to produce such work. The sound design is also deliberately sparse. No cartoony soundscape with slide whistles or ‘boings’ we want the audience to get a sense that they’re in a real world. That they could walk by a park bench wherever they are and see Brenda and Brandon engaged in their daily joust. More than anything I hope audience will consider Brenda and Brandon their mates too!