Hayley Morris Shape & Shadow Interview
In this engaging conversation, Mack Garrison speaks with Hayley Morris, an animation director and founder of Shape and Shadow, about her journey in stop motion animation. They discuss the creative process behind her workshops, the challenges of production, and the materials she uses. Hayley shares her early inspirations, the balance of motherhood and artistry, and the influence of nature on her creativity. She also offers valuable advice for aspiring animators and reflects on the significance of community in the animation field.
Takeaways
Stop motion animation is a time-consuming but rewarding process.
Workshops should focus on creative problem-solving and accessibility.
Finding inspiration in everyday materials is key to animation.
Early exposure to art can shape a creative career.
Clear communication with clients is essential in stop motion production.
Experimentation with different materials can lead to unique results.
Balancing motherhood and a creative career requires flexibility.
Nature can provide a refreshing break from the demands of animation.
Building a supportive community is vital for growth in the creative field.
Investing in the right tools can enhance the animation process.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Stop Motion Animation
03:07 Workshop Insights and Creative Problem Solving
06:00 Early Inspirations and Influences
10:07 The Challenges of Stop Motion Production
13:00 Materials and Experimentation in Animation
16:01 Balancing Art and Motherhood
20:02 The Journey of Shape and Shadow
24:02 Nature's Influence on Creativity
27:53 Advice for Aspiring Animators
Transcript:
Mack Garrison (00:00)
Hey, what's up y'all? Mack Garrison here with Dash Studio and so excited to be continuing our speaker series with a talented Hayley Morris from Shape and Shadow. If you don't know Hayley in Shape and Shadow, they're an animation studio of Hayley Morris, an artist and animation director based in Vermont. At Shape and Shadow, they specialize in mixed media and stop motion animation, creating stories that come to life through rich textures, handcrafted details, and thoughtful storytelling. Hayley, thanks so much for hanging out with me today.
Hayley (00:28)
Thanks so much for inviting me to do a workshop at the Dash Bash. I'm super excited to do this with all of you and to meet more people in the animation community. So it should be really fun.
Mack Garrison (00:41)
my gosh, it's gonna be so fun.
And I think on behalf of every creative out there, we're so jealous that you have like maybe the coolest job in animation. Like I feel like stop motion is like what everyone wants to do. And then they realize like how long it takes and they're like, okay, maybe it's not quite for me. Maybe you.
Hayley (00:50)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it definitely
is a time consuming process, but I love every minute of it. It's super fun.
Mack Garrison (01:04)
Well, you maybe that's a good place to start for a workshop in stop motion. You know, what do what should folks think about? Is there considering coming to take your workshop or what is the stop motion workshop going to be like? You think?
Hayley (01:17)
Yeah. so I was brainstorming a bunch of ideas and I think when, when coming up with ideas, I was like, okay, this is fairly short, like an hour and a half, I think. And so it made me think about, in animation and the pitching process of pitching your ideas and you don't have that much time to, you know, come up with stuff. So I was like, okay, there's a time limitation.
Mack Garrison (01:41)
Sure.
Hayley (01:43)
let's embrace that and just think about like creative problem solving. So I thought it would be fun to have kind of like an intro to stop motion animation and that you're working with physical materials and thinking on the spot and like coming up with something really fast. And in my own work, I do a lot of improvisational kind of stuff and thinking about how can I repurpose
Mack Garrison (01:48)
I like that.
Hayley (02:10)
materials and come up with creative solutions. So in this workshop, students will be animating on their phones, which everybody has. So it'll be very accessible for everybody to learn how to use phones to animate and learn how to animate frame by frame, which I imagine a lot of people coming to this workshop probably have more computer experience. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (02:38)
Sure, like cell animation or something like that.
Hayley (02:40)
So I think it'll be really cool to see how they translate those skills that they already have, or maybe they don't have any animation skills. don't know who's coming, but I wanted to make it accessible for people with experience and people without experience. So having materials they can work with and just work hands on in that hour.
Mack Garrison (02:51)
It's gonna be a mix. It'll be a mix.
Hayley (03:07)
and learn about the basics of stop motion frame by frame using a stop motion app in the phone and learning about how they can use like limited resources to make something really fun and playful.
Mack Garrison (03:22)
That's so rad
because I feel like there's always like kind of a little bit of friction to trying to get into anything new, right? It's like, well, I don't quite know how to do it. So it sounds like with this workshop, it'll be a digestible elemental take on stop motion to kind of get you started and hopefully inspire you to do more later on, which sounds really good.
Hayley (03:41)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I want people to come out of it feeling like excited and that they can do it on their own, you know, in their house or like animate something in the street, like just with their phone, like finding cool patterns and stuff. So yes.
Mack Garrison (03:49)
love that.
I'm so cool. I'm so cool. It's so cool. I do feel like I am cool sometimes. It's
so cool with stop motion. Even you alluded to there at the end, like keeping an eye out for patterns. I bet you're always kind of thinking through like, this would be like fun to play with or put in motion or this material could be really good. Do you find yourself like every time you're just out in the day to day real world, you're always looking at textures or patterns or some of those little pieces.
Hayley (04:23)
yeah, like every day I find something where I'm like, that would be a perfect material or I could turn that into a little film. Like, yeah, just going on walks. I live in Vermont in a pretty rural area. just like going on hikes and stuff, I'm like, I could animate like these textures in the forest here. Like, I feel like I'm always looking for stuff wherever I go.
Mack Garrison (04:46)
I love that. That's great.
I'm curious, Haley, from your perspective, you know, do you have any first initial memories of when you got into stop motion? Like anything come to mind is like, that was the first movie or TV show or first time I saw where I was like, this is interesting. What is this?
Hayley (05:02)
Yeah, I mean, I grew up watching so many movies. Like, I would just watch things over and over and over again. think a lot of the movies that I grew up with, you know, being born in the 80s, a lot of special effects were done in stop motion. like, everything prior to Jurassic Park, like all the special effects were stopped. Yeah,
Mack Garrison (05:22)
yeah.
That's right, was what, Phil Tippett, right? Who did all the stuff. Yeah, super cool.
Hayley (05:32)
So I think, yeah, I was just mesmerized by these worlds that were created on screen and that they were like real physical sets and, you know, whole worlds that were created by artists. So, yeah, I'm thinking about the movies I really liked, like all of Jim Henson's films, like Labyrinth and Dark Crystal and even Neverending Story. Those were all like puppet.
Mack Garrison (05:59)
yeah.
Hayley (06:00)
real puppets and interacting with live action stuff and I just loved those very fantastical worlds that were created. That's not necessarily stop motion but I think that was my first like glimpse of like creating a different world from what we are living in and like I just loved that magic of it.
Mack Garrison (06:21)
Well, I love that they
were like kind of like you said, it wasn't exclusively stop motion, but it was kind of cool how they could weave it into like live action or some of these pieces and how fluid that was, you know, especially as another eighties kid, you know, never ending story. I mean, that was like the peak of the eighties. I feel like a movie I was watching loved it so much.
Hayley (06:29)
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, it's you watch it today still and you're just like this is so amazing like it doesn't seem dated like Everything is so beautiful. I love it
Mack Garrison (06:51)
When did you have like someone
in your life that kind of helped guide you a little bit on that? Or were you just kind of tinkering on your own when you first started and just like, let me just see what this looks like if I try this with my camera.
Hayley (07:01)
Um, well, my mom definitely like encouraged my art making. So as a kid, like I was always drawing with her. She was giving me like sculpey clay and I was sculpting little heads out of clay as a kid. Um, but yeah, in high school, um, I had a really great art teacher that really encouraged me and I wanted to experiment with stop motion. And he like,
made this little independent study for me where I made my first stop motion film just using like a camcorder and stopping and starting the record button over and over. Yeah. And I just, I just loved it. And yeah, it was a great first experience. And then in college, I went to RISD and majored in animation, actually film animation video. And you have to
Mack Garrison (07:38)
how funny.
Hayley (07:57)
do film as well, is really cool, like learning the whole language of filmmaking. And you get to like have a little taste of like everything. So, you know, 2D animation, video, filming with like real film on a Bolex, like all that stuff. Yeah. And it was really, it was a great program. But I took a stop motion class, which I knew was like something I really...
Mack Garrison (07:58)
Mmm.
wow.
Hayley (08:24)
was excited to learn about and I took that and I was just like, okay, yeah, this is it. This is what I love. Yeah. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (08:28)
Totally hooked, I love it so much. Well it feels
like there's always this kind of combination of art and design in the world that we operate in, Art is such a personal preference on things, design, we're trying to create stuff for other folks. And I feel like, especially with stop motion, there's just a lot of gray area right there where it is art, but you're still trying to solve a problem for the client. And I feel like that's gotta be so hard when there's such a lack of do-over opportunity in stop motion.
At a high level, what's some of the planning that kind of goes into some of the stop motion stuff to ensure the clients that you work with aren't going back and having to make tons of revisions later on?
Hayley (09:07)
Yeah, that's a great question and point. I think there's just a lot of pre-planning that goes into it before, you know, starting. I think being really clear with the client about the process, because a lot of people don't understand that you can't just like click a button and change it magically. Yeah. So I think it's, yeah, just being very clear about the process and, you know, having a really
Mack Garrison (09:27)
Right, like, no, that's like locked in.
Hayley (09:37)
Especially for commercial work, like a really tight animatic, you know, having your designs, you know, everything approved, the whole approval process, and then when animation starts, you're like, okay, so everything good once we start. Yeah, because once we start, it's going to be really hard to reshoot because it's all, yeah, straight ahead. It's not like you're doing keyframes and you can go back. It's like the straight of head process that
Mack Garrison (09:51)
Yeah, one last time, just wanna check in, make sure y'all are good with all this.
Hayley (10:07)
You just have to embrace and trust that it's gonna all go well, so.
Mack Garrison (10:11)
And I guess
it goes back to what you mentioned earlier and like improvising, like kind of on the fly. Cause like sometimes I bet you're on set. It's not quite going exactly like you want it to. It's like something struggling to land, right? And you're probably like, okay, we need to pivot from this and do X, Y, Z instead of ABC. Does that happen with regularity?
Hayley (10:30)
Yeah, I mean, I feel like you can plan as much as you can, there's something always comes up where maybe it doesn't go exactly where you're going and you kind of, have to embrace it and kind of like in the moment, like rethink where it could go. so I kind of like that challenge of it. I mean, you can, of course, like, you know, reshoot something, but it's going to add more time and money to a project. But
Mack Garrison (10:49)
Sure.
Hayley (11:00)
Yeah, feel like, yeah, it's fun, embracing the spontaneity of it.
Mack Garrison (11:07)
Well,
and like at the core of what we do, I so much of us are problem solvers, right? We kind of forget that we're caught up in like design and creative and aesthetic, which is great, but it is problem solving at its core. And so I think designers are always kind of on their toes and having to think through stuff, which is really neat. I'm sure with so much experience in stop motion, there are certain materials and tools that are like your go-to now. You know, I just think about, you know, stuff that you work on, whether it's, you know, clay or fibers, like, do you have
Like what are some of the different, I guess, materials you work with on regularity for projects that are kind of like your go-to materials?
Hayley (11:43)
Yeah, I mean in my work I just, I think with stop motion it's like such a tactile medium that you're using real physical materials and using real light to accentuate the textures and you know bring whatever you're trying to do on screen to life so I like working with everything. I think that's what's so fun about stop motion is that you know there aren't any rules you can
Mack Garrison (12:06)
Nice.
Hayley (12:12)
animate absolutely anything. So that's why I love just experimenting and seeing what makes the most sense for each project. lately I've been doing a lot of paper. It's a really versatile material. know, one flat sheet of paper you can fold, can sculpt, you can crumple it, you can turn it into anything and working with that like set range of colors and finding.
you know, sourcing those materials is really fun. But yeah, for each project, it's always like a big puzzle I'm trying to figure out. And usually for client work, they usually come to me with like, you know, a general idea or style that they're going for. So it's usually like, okay, we want, we see you do paper, can you do something within this style? And then I adapt it and make it fit whatever, you know.
Mack Garrison (12:51)
Mm.
Sure.
Hayley (13:11)
The feeling that they're going for is...
Mack Garrison (13:12)
Sure.
Have you ever had to work with some random material? Like, is there anything that sticks out? You're like, that was the weirdest thing. We did stop motion with like the inside of an orange or something. Yeah, I don't know what it is.
Hayley (13:22)
Yeah,
I did get asked to I did a music video for explosions in the sky, like a few years ago and I had a bunch of glass blowers, make these glass increments for me and I animated them and it was really really cool and then I got asked somebody somebody saw that and they wanted to do a pitch for something where I to like replicate water and they were like
Mack Garrison (13:51)
Whoa.
Hayley (13:51)
do
something similar like water in a plastic bottle but have the water bottle look like it's turning from a bottle into water and i was like okay i can i don't know if i can do glass again but what's similar to that and i was like they make like fake glass out of sugar so i like did this whole day my kitchen was crazy i
Mack Garrison (14:01)
Whoa.
Huh.
Yeah, you're
like, didn't know I was gonna be a chemist as well in this profession,
Hayley (14:18)
Yeah, so that was
a challenging one. I was like, okay, so yeah, there's always this challenge of figuring out how to do stuff. And the experimentation of that is super fun. So I made mold, like a mold of a water bottle in full form, and then the increments of it kind of like breaking apart. So I made like clay sculptures of that made them made mold, silicone molds. And then I made a bunch of sugar.
Mack Garrison (14:37)
Whoa.
Hayley (14:46)
melted sugar and poured them into the molds and let them dry and then animated them. So I think that was probably the hardest and weirdest material I've worked with probably.
Mack Garrison (14:51)
That's pretty wild.
Well, and I
bet like with food, there's like the added dilemma of stuff can spoil or go bad. like, I'm sure that affects like how quickly you need to move. Maybe not so much for sugar, but I'm sure some of the other projects you've worked on when you work with food, I'm sure there's like an expiry date on like having to get stuff done by a certain point. Otherwise stuff starts to rot. That's so.
Hayley (15:16)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're working
against time. So, yes.
Mack Garrison (15:21)
Time seems to be everything in your line of work, doesn't it? Well, I
love that when you were little, you were talking to me earlier about your mom kind of feeling like you were empowered to try creative, to explore all this stuff. know, ahead of this interview, I was doing a little research and I found the Nouns Fest on your Instagram, which talked about this, you know, shaping clay and how motherhood is shaping you. Maybe you could tell us a little bit more about that. You know, your mom had such an impact.
on you and now you have this film, Blueberry Girl, how do you balance being an artist and a mom these days?
Hayley (15:57)
Yeah, so it's definitely a challenge, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, my daughter's four years old, and she's not in school full time, so it's definitely a balance of working and watching her, but it's so much fun and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think being a freelance artist is great that I have these periods of time where I'm super, super busy.
Mack Garrison (16:00)
Sure.
Hayley (16:23)
And then I have some downtime where I can spend a lot of time with her. So I love that flexibility. But yeah, the film for NounsFest was really cool. I saw an ad on Instagram where was like, we fund independent animators. We'll give you a chunk of money to make whatever you want. We'll be super hands off. And I was like, that sounds amazing. I'll try. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (16:49)
You're like, that's like a dream job right there.
Hayley (16:52)
I was like, I'll try, I'll try sending an idea in. And at the time I had been doing these clay loops just for myself to, you know, I always have something going on on the side just to experiment. So I was making these clay loops of my daughter and I, like me as this large figure and her as this tiny figure, like jumping on me and adding her voice on top. And I was like, oh, this would be a perfect.
Mack Garrison (17:05)
Sure.
Hayley (17:20)
opportunity to expand this idea and turn it into something bigger. So I sent in some of those tests I had done with, you know, kind of an overview of what I wanted to accomplish and they picked me as one of the filmmakers. So yeah, it was a really cool, yeah, they, it's such a cool program. Any animator watching this, like, check out NounsFest and submit an idea next year.
Mack Garrison (17:35)
Cool.
Hayley (17:50)
But anyways, yeah, so for that film, only kind of restrictions are you need to use some of the- one or more of the characters, these nouns characters. You can look it up, Nouns Festival. They're these little characters with glasses. And so I had my daughter look at all of the characters that were created and she picked a bunch of them that she liked. Okay, we can work with that.
Mack Garrison (18:06)
Sure. Fine.
Nice.
Hayley (18:20)
And then at the time she, and even now she's really into pretending she's different characters. And she was really obsessed with Willy Wonka at that time. Yeah. And she would just go around the house like saying, I'm blueberry girl. And pretending she was, what's her name?
Mack Garrison (18:28)
haha
Excellent, who wasn't at some point in their life?
yeah,
on Willy Wonka the girl who turned into the blueberry. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
Hayley (18:44)
Yeah, Violet Beauregard, yes.
And so, yeah, I thought it'd be really fun to have her interact with me and have her head turn into these different characters and use her voice. So, yeah, in the clay animation, she turns into a blueberry, a whale, a tuba, and then I recorded her voice doing, saying all this really funny stuff.
Mack Garrison (19:06)
Bye.
Hayley (19:13)
And yeah, I just really wanted to capture our relationship during this time and also her voice, is just so cute right now. So it's a nice time capsule. But yeah, really, I just fell in love animating with Clay. I hadn't really done it very much before and now I'm obsessed with it. And I think...
Mack Garrison (19:23)
That's so sweet.
Mmm.
Sure.
Hayley (19:37)
Much like motherhood, there's like no manual. And with this play, it's very intuitive and you kind of just have to go with the flow. So, you know, I do the same thing with my daughter. It's just like every day, was just like going with the flow, figuring stuff out. So I liked, I really like that, like freedom of the material and just having it kind of lead the way for me.
Mack Garrison (19:41)
sure.
I love it. Well, I love the kind
of just the free flowing life perspective, you know, with your daughter, it's figuring it out, right? On a day to day basis, we'll get through it and same with the client work, something comes up, we'll figure it out. The clay, let's just let the clay move where it needs to. I think sometimes as designers and animators and creatives, there's sort of the sense of perfection that we're always chasing, you know, just because we wanna make stuff as good as it can be, but something I've really just.
Hayley (20:09)
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (20:29)
learned to grab from our conversation thus far is just how easy it seems to come to you to just keep things moving forward in a certain degree, right? know, one my favorite lines is perfection inhibits progress. And I feel like you're kind of that way too. It's like, let's just keep it moving. We can refine it if we can, but let's just go with the flow, right?
Hayley (20:46)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.
Mack Garrison (20:48)
I love that so much. Well, let's speak to me
a little bit about shape and shadow. You how did that come to be initially and where does the name come from?
Hayley (20:56)
yeah, so yeah, I've been working in animation since out of college in different venues, but after working at different production companies and freelancing, I was like, I want to start my own thing. so I decided in 2015 to start Shape and Shadow and
Yeah, I mean, I work primarily by myself, but I bring in freelancers when I need to. if budget allows and I just love, you know, being able to collaborate with a bunch of bunch of people on artists that I love. I think one of your questions was like about the logo too. Okay. Yeah. When coming up with the name, I really wanted to incorporate
Mack Garrison (21:44)
Yeah, yeah, just all of it. Curious how it started, curious about the logo, how it all came to be.
Hayley (21:54)
like animation in it and specifically the kind of animation I do. So like I'm working with physical materials, the shape and then the shadow. I work with real light. So and I thought the alliteration of shape and shadow is like very musical. And I work with musicians a lot. I don't know, I just just really I went through a bunch of names, but that one specifically I was like, oh, this works. I love this.
Mack Garrison (22:21)
It's so funny, one of the harder things I feel like with the opening your own shop is just coming up with a name that you like. I'm sure you probably went through a million different names and you were like, all right, this one sounds good enough. It sounds good.
Hayley (22:23)
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember like calling my grandfather, who was like a big influence on me too, and just telling him a bunch of the names I was going for and I told him shape and shadow and he was like, those are like the two most beautiful words ever put together. And I was like, okay, I'll go with that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mack Garrison (22:49)
Gosh, you're like soul granddad. Yeah, the nostalgia got you. I love that.
I feel like granddad's grandparents have good influence on pushing folks the right direction. I'm curious, who are some other folks that inspire you? It seems like family is really important. I could draw that from your mom or even just referencing your granddad or your daughter, but who are some other maybe creatives in the field that you just really look up to and you're like, oh, they're just doing some amazing work and I need to give them a shout out on how good their stuff is.
Hayley (23:08)
Yeah.
Yeah,
Well, going back to my grandfather, I feel like he was a really huge influence. He was a music composer for film. So like as a kid, I'd watch him on his piano with a little TV, like improvising music to the visuals he was seeing. And so I kind of do the opposite in that.
I like working with musicians and bands and visualizing their music. I think that was a huge influence just seeing the film world through him. But some artists that have inspired me in animation are Lotte Reiniger, who was a woman, stop motion paper artist in the early 1900s. And she made
Mack Garrison (24:02)
Hmm.
Ugh.
Hayley (24:12)
I actually made the first feature animated film like way before Disney. Yeah. And she worked on a multi-plane, was like what's behind me, layers of glass and doing a lot of paper cutout like fairy.
Mack Garrison (24:16)
Whoa, I had no idea.
Sure, okay.
Is multi-plane,
I'm remembering from like Disney where you can get like depth of field or maybe parallax because it's like different layers, is that essentially kind of the same thing?
Hayley (24:38)
Yeah, yeah, mean theirs was like super amazing with like... Yeah, yeah, like they could do all these crazy camera moves and yeah, like pretty much all of Disney's was done on a multiplane. But yeah, mine's kind of more basic, more like a lot of going in your head. But yeah, it's essentially like a...
Mack Garrison (24:42)
sure, right? The layers and how it could extrapolate and kind of pinch together, of course.
Wow, okay.
Hahaha
Hayley (25:05)
old school like after effects or photoshop if you think about it like layers that you can put you know your foreground middle ground background and i love that i can do you know it doesn't just have to be paper it could be any material so yeah
Mack Garrison (25:08)
Thanks
That's cool. I love that
flexibility and kind of goes back to like, you're always looking to tink around with different stuff anyway, right? Not beholden to just one material. It's literally whatever you can find. Something you mentioned earlier I thought was really interesting is, you go on a lot of walks, you're up in the Vermont area. It's so beautiful up that way. I'm sure nature has a big influence on you and being outside. Maybe you could talk a little bit on, you
why Vermont or like why is it so good to be in a place where you can go on these hikes and step away from work and how has that kind of helped you as a creator be better you think?
Hayley (25:53)
Yeah, I mean in my whole adult life I've lived in cities so I definitely I love cities and like I'm so inspired by cities and moving here was definitely an adjustment for me but I'm like loving it now after being here a few years but yeah my husband's family lives here so when we had a baby and pandemic and everything we're like let's give this a try.
Mack Garrison (26:19)
Let's get out of the city. Too many people around us.
Hayley (26:22)
Yeah, so we moved to Vermont and it's really cool. I mean, I love that I'm able to be like live in the middle of the woods and do what I do like that everything can be remote now and you know sending files like you know if I have to you know go to New York or Boston or North Carolina like I can jump on a plane it's fine but it's so cool that I'm able to you know live in a rural place and
Mack Garrison (26:44)
Yeah, right.
Hayley (26:53)
I found it very inspiring to be, you in the winter, now I'm embracing skiing. So it's like, can go out, get some fresh air doing that. And then in the summer, it's just like a magical fairy land with like waterfalls and stuff.
Mack Garrison (27:08)
beautiful.
I've gotten as close, I haven't been to Vermont, so I'm a less need to get there. I've gotten to like New Hampshire and the White Mountains, so kind of over by the border. So I imagine it's pretty similar. Yeah, so I got up close. Very similar.
Hayley (27:15)
yeah, that's close. Yeah, Very similar. But
yeah, I think it's nice. mean, especially with stop motion, like, you need to be in a dark room, like, by yourself. And so it can, you know, feel kind of stuffy, you know, after animating for like 10 hours, sometimes straight. So like being able to pop outside and go on a hike or like go for a swim in the river is like...
really nice and like good for mental health.
Mack Garrison (27:48)
Oh, I
bet. I mean, I'm just imagining you kind of hunched over making all these little movements for hours on end. You probably stand up and you're like, oh my gosh, my back. I believe it. That's really cool. I've always had an affinity for nature myself and I feel like the juxtaposition of our digital world and what we're doing and being able to get outside is always like that nice reprieve and nice, nice refresh. You you mentioned earlier that you started in 2015. Congratulations on 10 years this year. That's amazing.
Hayley (27:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks.
Mack Garrison (28:17)
Does
it feel like it's been 10 years? Do you feel like it's gone quicker than that? Or you're like, I can't believe I'm still doing this.
Hayley (28:22)
I think
it went pretty fast, I mean, I started in 2008, like, working with, like I said, like, different production companies and stuff, but, yeah, it's really cool. It's been 10 years, like, doing this on my own now, and, I don't know. Pretty proud of myself, I guess, for, like, sticking with it.
Mack Garrison (28:39)
I love it. Yeah. Well,
I read this book one time, I think it was Michael Gerber. was like why most small business or the E-myth, why most small businesses fail. And there was this whole book basically talking about some missteps you don't wanna make when you're starting a company. Someone gave it to me when I first started Dash. And a surprising statistic that I learned is that 85 % of small businesses fail within the first year of starting. So the fact that you've been around for 10 years,
Hayley (29:05)
Thank
Mack Garrison (29:06)
deserves a round of applause and a testament to the good work you're making. Here's
Hayley (29:07)
you.
Mack Garrison (29:11)
a good question for you. So you got 10 years now of running Shape and Shadow. know, thinking to someone who's maybe interested in stop motion animation or even just starting their own company, their own creative shop themselves, you know, what's some of the things that stick out to you over these 10 years that would just be important things to keep in mind as you're kind of going off on your own creative adventure? Anything come top of mind that you would give advice on?
Hayley (29:35)
I think not be afraid to pick people's brains. I'm so grateful to all the mentors that I've had that were older than me and had more experience and took me under their wing and weren't trying to keep any secrets. They were willing to help and offer advice. And I try to do the same thing to younger people now.
So think, yeah, don't be afraid to reach out to artists that you are inspired by. And I feel like the animation community as a whole is pretty friendly. And so, yeah, don't be shy with that. And then, yeah, I'd say for specifically stop motion.
Mack Garrison (30:15)
Yeah, 100%.
Hayley (30:31)
think it just requires patience and time and dedication to experimentation. thinking about what you love about stop motion, if you really love the craft of it and making the physical stuff that goes into it, like puppets and sets and all of that, you could pursue just being a fabricator. And there's a whole field of artists that work on the tiniest details.
and if that's something you want to pursue, there's like schools you can go to to learn, learn that. and if you want to, you know, be an animator, think, yeah, just like experimenting and, I think, you know, you can start out animating on your phone, but I would definitely advise getting Dragonframe software. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (31:27)
yeah, that's like the go-to for stop motion, right?
Hayley (31:30)
And it's like very, it's a very affordable program that I think they just want, you know, to support the community and yeah, it's, it's amazing. It's like changed everything being able to like see what you're doing instantly. so yeah, yeah. Cause when I was learning, we animated on bolexes like and developed our film. Like we didn't, yeah, we didn't know like what.
Mack Garrison (31:46)
Not know you're going down a mistake route or whatever, right? Get it earlier. No, that's good.
my gosh.
Hayley (32:00)
We were supposed to be in the same Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I think, like when I first started going out on my own, like after I worked at production companies, I was like, okay, I'm going to rack up a credit card and buy myself a DSLR camera, a tripod and some lights. And I'm just going to set up a studio in my house and like make stuff.
Mack Garrison (32:00)
You're like getting this, you're like, shoot, that's not gonna work.
guys.
Hayley (32:29)
And I am I Was I was like I really want to do music videos I'm gonna email some Artists I really like and see if they might want to do something and one that I emailed was like yeah sure that would be awesome um and They gave me like a little bit of money, and I made my first music video and from there it kind of just snowballs where you put your work out and people see it and then kind of just goes from there, so I think just like if you're into stop-motion like
setting up a studio with just the essential things if you can and just start working. Yeah, exactly.
Mack Garrison (33:05)
Go with the flow, kind of the trend of the conversation
today. I love that so much. Well, we've been speaking with Haley Morris with Shape and Shadow, an animation studio run by Haley Morris, an arts and animation director based in Vermont. And Shape and Shadow, they specialize in mixed media and stop motion animation, creating stories that come to life through rich textures, handcrafted details, and thoughtful storytelling. And thank you for the thoughtful conversation today, Haley. And if you want to see Haley, you want to learn more about stop motion, this is your cue.
Hayley (33:30)
Thank you.
Mack Garrison (33:34)
to go out and buy a Dash Bash ticket. We actually are doing workshops this year, which Haley will be leading an optional third day of workshops, June 11th through 13th, 2025 here in Raleigh, North Carolina. If you've never been to the Dash Bash, it's an inclusive motion design vessel that's built around bringing great people together for some great conversations. And especially as Haley is in Vermont, we're in Raleigh and all of you are spread across in the nooks and crannies around the world. It's a great opportunity to come out behind our computers,
Behind the layout where we're doing some stop-motion animation and come hang out for a few days So it's gonna be a lot of fun and Haley can't wait to hang with you this summer
Hayley (34:11)
Yeah, me too. I'm so excited to hang out with you and meet, you know, aspiring stop motion animators or, you know, just animators that want to like add this to their toolbox. yeah. Thank you.
Mack Garrison (34:23)
I love it, I love it. Thanks everyone, have a good one.