Case Study: The Bus Trip

Sarah Gampel is an independent animator from Stockholm, Sweden. She studied screenwriting in Copenhagen, as well as animation at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts (SADA) and the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her films tell personal stories that often relate to specific political issues. Her work has been shown at the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, the La Havana International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Cuba, as well as at film events in New York City, Givat Olga, and Ramallah. We asked her about her animated documentary short: The Bus Trip.

“This is an advantage when working with animation the way I do.”

Where did the idea for The Bus Trip come from?

“The idea for my animated documentary short The Bus Trip came after a trip I made to Israel and Palestine in early summer 2014. I went there to take part in a student film festival, where a couple of international film students toured around Israel showing their films in different cities.”

“At this time I was still a film student, and my professor allowed me to go on this trip during school time, if I took pictures and wrote a report when I came back. When I returned, I wrote a travel diary where I described the trip day by day. But when I handed it in to the professor I still felt I had a lot more to tell about the trip. Especially about my more personal feelings and memories and they became the starting point for this film.”

How did you turn your ideas into a script?

“I started out with the still photos I had taken during my trip to Israel and Palestine, looking at them and trying to figure out which scenes that could take place in them. From that I started writing out the scenes simultaneously, as I would start editing the stills together with recorded monologue and dialog. In this way the stills later became the backgrounds to the animation.”

“The script was written and rewritten during the whole process of making the film, even up until the very last edit. As I would animate I would come up with new dialog and rewrite passages of the monolog. This is an advantage when working with animation the way I do.”

How did you communicate your ideas to your actors?

“Before recording the dialog with actors, I added +s and –s at the beginning and end of each scene. I did this to make sure I had the emotional arcs where I wanted them to be. This also works as a reminder for me as director during the recording session.”

“This film became my graduation film from my film school, Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts, where I studied animation. We had one year to make our graduation projects, but I didn’t manage to finish the film on time. It took me a year and a half to finish the film. And during that time I had some funding from the school and then later I got state funding to be able to finish it.”

What was the post-production process like?

“One of my visions for my film was to put a lot of effort into the music and sound design. Therefore, I had a composer, sound designer and sound editor to help me out. They where all involved in the process of the film from the very beginning. We would have meetings, long before there was a script or rough cut, where I would discuss my abstract feelings about what kind of film I wanted to do.”

“I made the color correction and even redid it a couple of times, in-between festivals screenings, just to get it exactly the way I wanted it to be. This is something you can do for yourself to feel confident about your film.”

“Being short on budget at the end of the process I made the DCP by myself in an open source program. And I would advise all new filmmakers to do it, it’s not difficult as long as you read and make sure to follow the instructions.”

How is the distribution of the film going?

“I’ve been screening my film at film festivals all over the world, from Osaka, Japan and Nairobi, Kenya to Los Angeles, USA and Bondi Beach, Australia. At the moment it’s being distributed online by DAFilms, and this spring (2018) it’s being released in Swedish cinemas in a national short film program where short films get screened before the feature at some cinemas.”