Meet the speakers: Ozlem Akturk
An interview with Ozlem “Ozi” Akturk, an Annie Award-winning creator, cinematographer, and producer in stop motion and mixed media with over 15 years of experience in film and animation.
Q&A hosted by Meryn Hayes & Cory Livengood.
Read time: 15min
Meryn Hayes:
It’s great to meet you! I would love to hear a little bit about how you got into cinematography in the first place.
Ozlem Akturk:
Well, in the first place, I was always into art and also photography. When I was a teenager, I saved up money and bought my first DSLR camera. It was a Pentax 35mm SLR camera. From there, I started shooting in black and white, still photography. I loved it, but I also had a love for movies. First I tried to get into art and photography, but then I had the chance to listen to a lecture at a university when I was young and they did animation and also 16mm film workshops. That experience made me realize that there was the possibility to study film and animation.
With that knowledge, I started looking for Universities all around Germany with the focus on film and animation. I love stop motion, but it was a niche everywhere, and mostly in Germany it was more of one. I found a place in Stuttgart and went to study there. I studied film and animation. We could do everything there: animation, filming, motion control. That got me way closer to working with the right tools, that made me realize I would love to do a real stop-motion short with fellow students.
Looking back, we all thought, "Oh, this is so great," and we are great. No, looking back it's horrible. Stuttgart also has a big animation film festival, the biggest in Germany. They invited international people for lectures and there was this guy Christian De Vita who was working on Fantastic Mr. Fox as the storyboard artist. After his lecture, I went to him and asked if he had contacts or knew if there's another stop-motion feature film planned.
It was indeed, Frankenweenie. He gave me the line producer's email address. I applied, a month later he replied back and said, "Yeah, we are still in pre-production. We are interested. It's happening in London." I was in Stuttgart. "Are you interested in moving to London?" I'm like, "Hell yes!" Then that's how my journey started. I went straight into Frankenweenie and what a dream. Because of my technical background, the camera crew wanted me to be there as a trainee.
They loved what I was doing and I worked my way up to become a camera assistant. Yeah, it was two years on Frankenweenie, because again, stop motion takes such a long time, but it was magic, wonderland.
Cory Livengood:
What are some of the differences between your live-action, traditional cinematography and pivoting over to stop motion?
Ozlem Akturk:
Well, as I mentioned, stop motion takes a lot of time. Live action, you shoot, have a little discussion and then you just continue shooting. On stop motion, depending how long the scene is, a second is the animator has to shoot 24 frames. If it's animated on ones, if it's animated on twos, it's a bit faster, 12 frames. But it's time, it's actually time. And a huge amount of details you put into it. It's less forgiving when someone kicks just a bit of light. If the light bulb pops and you have to replace it, you can immediately see the change. In live action, you don't have those problems.
Cory Livengood:
Is The Tiny Chef shot on ones or twos or depends?
Ozlem Akturk:
It's mainly shot on twos. On feature films, it's mainly on ones., but they have the budgets to do it. The other thing is whenever we have motion control, we have to do it on ones, because otherwise, the camera moves frame by frame. If the animator doesn't animate the second frame, you will see that.
Cory Livengood:
I would love to know a little bit of the inspiration. What inspires you as a cinematographer in the outside world? What do you see and bring to your sets?
Ozlem Akturk:
Oh, well, it's always nature, isn't it? Although I also like to get inspired by other people’s work and art as well and think internally about how to adapt it to my scenes.
Cory Livengood:
He does live in a stump, I guess that makes sense.
The Tiny Shef’s Stump
Ozlem Akturk:
Yeah, nature is one of those things. We always try to get some dapples, so it looks like from the top, light is coming through. Who knows? Through plants or leaves. I'm trying to get some structure into the background, some dapples with the lights, so that has a nice wrap around it. But then again, I work on a really small set, where it's sometimes really difficult to get the lights properly in. You just have to cheat a lot or sometimes you just go with it.
The other thing I love is when you can put practicals in it. Nowadays, LEDs are so helpful and powerful despite their small size. We sometimes have...oh, I have to build my own little lights and just put it into the scene, which I also love just working with miniature.
Cory Livengood:
Yeah, that's interesting. How much overlap is there between you and the set designer and fabricators and stuff like that? It sounds like you work hand in hand.
Ozlem Akturk:
Yes, that is right. We are in such close communication. Every time, we have to. There's no way around it. Yeah, it works perfectly. Jason is amazing, he's our production designer, and he's doing such great work and is very hands-on.
The Tiny Chef on-set.
Cory Livengood:
How did you end up meeting Adam Reid and Rachel Larsen and coming up with this idea for the Tiny Chef? What was the synthesis of that idea?
Ozlem Akturk:
Well, I worked with Rachel on Isle of Dogs. We became friends and then after Isle of Dogs, everyone went their own path, but on Isle of Dogs, she showed me she had that green little puppet, but she didn't know what to do with it. So that went back into a box. In 2018, I wanted to do a live-action cooking show, my own project, because I was burned out from doing jobs for other people. I was like, it's not satisfying anymore. I was like, okay, let's focus on your own project. Because I was pushing it away and I was looking for a proper kitchen location, I was on a location scout.
Then Rachel was in New Zealand doing another animation series called Kiri and Lou. She was working there as an animator, but she started on her Instagram account doing miniature food. It looked really real. That just gave me the idea. I instantly contacted her, I was like, "Girl! Let's do a stop-motion cooking show, and your character, let's call him the Tiny Chef. He's the main character."
She instantly loved it. From there, we instantly got on Facebook, social media, Instagram, and YouTube to get the name, and see if that name was available. From there, we grabbed everything, and kicked it off. I told her, "We need an apron, we need a chef's hat." She did it. The next day, she built a chef's hat, but she didn't have an apron.
Cory Livengood:
It's really blown up so quickly too, which is just really crazy.
Ozlem Akturk:
Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy. I instantly booked the flight to New Zealand and we were like, "We're going to bloody do this," and we did it. The moment I went to New Zealand, I helped again, setting up, lighting the first kitchen set. We did a couple of clips.
Matt Hutchinson is the voice of chef and that's Rachel's sister's husband. He always did that voice and she was like, "It might fit," and it did. It's crazy how everything just came together. Adam saw what we did and he wrote to us. Rachel knew Adam from a festival. He helped us with the website and that's how we came together.
Cory Livengood:
That's crazy. The moral of that story to me just seems like putting yourself out there, meeting people, and just never letting go of those connections. Or not being so worried that something's going to happen right in the moment, but you can come back to it years later. The fact that the Tiny Chef puppet was put in a box and it was later on, here's the idea. Like you said, meeting people at a festival or on a job or whatever it might be, and just cultivating those connections with people..
Ozlem Akturk:
The other thing is you don't have to do it alone. We are surrounded by so many creative people. If you find like-minded people and you feel like you can work together, then definitely do it as a team. It makes such a big difference to go through challenges together and push you up together.
Meryn Hayes:
What do you think about the Tiny Chef that just struck everyone?
Ozlem Akturk:
We had the idea, we wanted kindness and a change, showing people should be kind and also environmentally friendly. We are wasting so much food and we use so much material. We wanted to integrate it with him, as representing him as a soul of the earth and being kind, gentle, loving animals, avoiding littering everywhere, and just being mindful towards the future and hopefully doing a great impact on kids especially, but then we got so many grownups as followers, which is so funny. But it's great. I love that it attracts every age group.
Meryn Hayes:
I also love that with the world being so chaotic at times, just a reminder that being kind and reminder that we've got one earth. All of that kindness is important, and especially instilling that at such a young age for kids, it's just so important.
Ozlem Akturk:
Yeah. That's also why he's vegan. It's not that you have to be vegan, but just to introduce it to people who don't have a clue what it means.
The Tiny Chef making soup.
Cory Livengood:
It definitely normalizes being vegan or being vegetarian, which is cool. What was it like when Tiny Chef went from a social media phenomenon to television?
Ozlem Akturk:
Well, the thing is, every storyline has a truth. It's all the things we went through, it took such a long time to find a network. I say a long time but on the other hand, if you compare it to other creators, we are in a fast lane.
Normally, it takes a minimum five years until you might get a show. We had a high interest of networks, but again, it took so long and it was such back and forth. That fear. Are you going to get it or not? We thought, we just put it in and he goes through the same story. Yeah, it's actually what we lived through.
Meryn Hayes:
How did that production timelines change from when y'all were doing it on your end and then for Nickelodeon? Did that change your process at all?
Ozlem Akturk:
Oh, yeah. You have to wait for approval and that takes a long time. You see it, and on social media, we have an idea and we instantly just flip it over and make it so we are just on it. That's how we also build up the social media accounts so quickly, because we are not discussing too much. We have a brilliant idea. Everyone is laughing. Every time when we know everyone is laughing, that's the idea. We just do it.
On the TV show, you have to wait for approval and have discussions with executives in LA to get the go. You have to understand the show was shot in Manchester UK and being in the UK and working with the 8 hour time difference just made it slower too before getting an answer.
Cory Livengood:
You attracted Kristen Bell, which is really funny. I love that she's a regular on the show now and also a producer, is that correct?
Ozlem Akturk:
Yeah, she's also a producer, she's helping us. She's amazing.
The Tiny Chef and Kristen Bell on S1 E1 ‘Pancakes/S’Mores’
Cory Livengood:
Yeah, I know. It's hilarious. I was just watching before the interview. One of the episodes where they're just chatting on the phone with each other, Tiny Chef and Kristen just cracks me up. It's so funny. Did she just see it on social media and decide she wanted to be a part of that? How did that relationship form?
Ozlem Akturk:
Jackie Tohn found us first because she was obsessed with miniatures and she introduced us to Kristen Bell. Jackie Tohn is really good friends with Kristen Bell. Kristen Bell contacted us and said, "Hey, love what you're doing, and let me know if I can help you guys."
We are like, "Hell yes." We met with her. As you know, she has the production company, Dunshire Productions with Morgan Sackett and a couple of other creatives. She was saying how she could help us. We were instantly, "Yeah, all right. Let's partner up." As a person and Pro, she's amazing. No bullshit.
Cory Livengood:
Well, stop motion takes so long to do, that you don't need everything else to take so long to do. You just need to cut to the chase.
Ozlem Akturk:
But it still takes such a long time. I wish people would react quickly, but no. Especially again, when so many people are involved, you have to be patient and it's okay.
Cory Livengood:
Some of the things I really like about the cinematography of the show, you mentioned one of them, which are the practical lights that you've integrated into the sets and stuff like that. I think that's really cool.
Another thing I like is the depth of field. There are a lot of shots that have a lot of focus depth to them, which must be difficult to achieve. I don't know if there's any tips or tricks or ways of shooting that you've found or anything that allow you to achieve results that are a little bit more traditional feeling in that sense.
Ozlem Akturk:
As in live-action, you have a focus puller, second camera assistant. On this one, you have just an animator. What I do is, if it's really a difficult shot, where the character moves back and forth, then I work with the animator, because he will need to animate the depth of field too.
I will go with him through the points where he starts and ends, and a third point for the middle, I line it up on the lens, mark it up, and also show him how to do it. Because another thing is when you make a mistake and you have to redo the frame, you have to go back with the focus too. But the thing is, because it still lenses, the lens breadth in it. If you go in the wrong direction, it might jitter. I had to tell him that he goes over the point and then goes back in the right direction, so it goes in the right direction again when he rotates it.
Cory Livengood:
The attention to detail that I have to overshoot just to push it the right way so you're in the right groove to animate your focus. That's really interesting.
Ozlem Akturk:
But then again, if you have a bigger budget because, in feature films, we don't let the animator do that. Dragonframe is a stop motion program, which also can control the motion control. Then it's all automated, but again, you have to speak to the animator again to find those start and end positions and the middle point, but the difference is you have the tool which does it automatically
Another thing you do on a feature film, you block it through with everything, just a rough block just to see the focus hit the point. Then he goes for the real animation, but again, on TV stop-motion, you barely have time to block it. You have to go straight to it. Then the safest thing is the animator just does it himself. They are so good, but then again, it adds to the timing for him to finish the shot.
Cory Livengood:
Another thing you do a lot of, which is interesting, is to have Tiny Chef interact with real people in the same shot, which is really cool. I wonder, how much post-production work goes into some of those composite shots, or maybe just in the show in general when putting it together after the shoot?
Ozlem Akturk:
It all depends. The easiest is when they don't cross. That's really little post-production. It's just finding the places where it's the easiest to cut around and then getting the color to the same ratio, so you don't see the line where it's merged. The moment where they cross live-action and Chef, we will need to use a blue screen. Then, of course, that's more work for post-production to clean it up. But yeah, I love it. Just having the challenge and seeing him in the real world.
That's why we are also looking into new technology. Hopefully, who knows? Another thing is we would like to do handheld shots and hopefully build a CGI pipeline to have more and more in crowded situations and outside. We would take plates, film them, and then integrate the CGI into that scene. Hopefully, in a year, you have to always update your knowledge and technology and also implement it. Of course, we are going to keep doing what we love. Stop motion is always our first love, but we also want to push quality, and challenges and want to make sure people think he's real.
Cory Livengood"
Yeah. He is real. What do you mean?
Not only even in the world of video, but you also have books now. What's in the future for Tiny Chef, as far as just the universe goes?
Ozlem Akturk:
Well, the world is our oyster, right? It would be amazing as just said, if we can integrate more into the world and interact more with people outside being in a restaurant. Then the other thing is we would love to do a cooking game or maybe also... what would be amazing, a virtual reality game. People can be in his stump and have to do things as a chef. I don't know, that would be amazing, but continue building his universe.
Meryn Hayes:
I just hear all that and have to think through the business potential and the licensing and the contracts, and as someone who comes from a creative background, how do you navigate that side of this, which is the financials and protecting the copyright? A lot of the people that are coming to this festival, if they're freelancers, they've come into this as artists and are trying to learn the business end as they go. What advice do you have for people on the business side?
Ozlem Akturk:
On the business side. When we started, we knew we didn't want to sell the chef. We wanted to keep the rights as much as possible. That was the first mission. Without anyone agreeing to it, we weren't ready to go and contract with them. We protected our idea. We were really hard with that, but then on the other side, we had the leverage because a lot of people don't have we could build him up on social media and make a brand out of it. I think a lot of creative people struggle with that.
It's tough. They are all sharks and they want to take it away. It's sad, but it is what it is. The thing is, if you have a project where you are behind it with heart, you have to weigh in. If you take the money, you have to play with their rules. Or are you going to try it the hard way and go your own way without any financial help? Then hope you can sell merchandise and make money like that and support yourself, but that's really a long way and hard as well.
We tried that, but our problem is again stop motion, you have to see it as live-action because everything is physical. You have to build it. It's the same people we hire, you would hire for live-action to build stuff. It is expensive and we needed more investments. We said, "Okay, we need the network." That helped a lot, but again, our first mission was to protect the idea.
Meryn Hayes:
It sounds like you and Rachel and Adam had talked about that, the heart or the money, which is a very hard balance, especially early on. You need the money, but coming to the network saying, "We're keeping him, we're keeping Tiny Chef," that's great.
Ozlem Akturk:
Well, when we started, we were working on other projects and we did the extra hours at night. On the weekends, we still do weekends and nights, but anyway, we did the normal jobs or freelance jobs just to get money in. Then we focused on our free time on the Tiny Chef. We were like, we’re going to continue like that, but we're not going to sell it, because we desperately need money.
We protected it really, really well. Nickelodeon was willing to go with our needs and wishes.
Meryn Hayes:
Good for y'all. What advice do you have for someone who's just getting started or wants to get into stop motion or want to make their version of The Tiny Chef type passion project? What advice do you have for people?
Ozlem Akturk
If they want to see the professional side, I would say apply at one of the big studios, Laika or ShadowMachine ... these are in Portland. If you are in LA, then they're smaller stop-motion companies. There’s also Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, Bix Pix, and Apartment D.
I would say just write them, write to everyone. Be specific about what you like to do, but be willing to do anything when they ask you. You have to go through that process. Ask questions, a lot of questions. People are so kind, especially in stop motion ... they're amazing, seriously. Yeah, they're all chill and they will take the time and show you. Nothing to be afraid of. If you want to do it yourself, you can do that too. Nowadays, it's so easy, even with your iPhone, you can connect it with Dragonframe and take stop frames. You don't even need a fancy camera. Then just an easy light setup. Again, whatever you have in the house, if it's like a desk lamp or something, use that just to get a feel about how it works. If you want to become an animator or building stuff, just do it.
Again, there are so many tutorials on YouTube. You can find so much if you Google, it's ridiculous. But if you want to have professional insights, you should try to apply at those companies. Get the connection and networking game on.
Meryn Hayes:
I love hearing how welcoming the community is. I think it's really special that in these communities, people are so willing to help other people who are trying to get into it or offer advice. I think it's just one of the reasons why we do the Bash, is to let the community have a point where they can meet and talk and ask questions and get advice and help. I just love hearing that the stop-motion community is as welcoming.
Ozlem Akturk:
Yeah, it is. Everyone's so nice. It's unbelievable. I never worked in a kinder environment.
Cory Livengood:
This has been a great conversation. We really, really appreciate it.
Ozlem Akturk:
Oh, I appreciate you guys. Again, respect what you guys are doing and it is such a pleasure meeting you.
Cory Livengood:
Yeah, likewise.
Meryn Hayes:
Really excited to see you in July!