The 6ft ‘living’ paintings that leap from walls

CNN  — 

Her painted characters appear to seamlessly leap from walls, slam doors, and ease into a steaming bath.

But for award-winning animator Daisy Jacobs, just one scene showing a character vacuuming can take weeks to complete.

Even something as simple as pouring a cup of tea can require up to 2 kilometers of clingfilm.

“The life size technique that I’ve been doing is as though you’re creating a real world,” says Jacobs.

“You can walk in the space, the characters are as tall as you are, and there’s something about wanting the illustrated world to come out of the canvas and be real, that I really like. You’re stepping into your own painting.”

Jacob’s graduation film, “The Bigger Picture,” won a BAFTA and was nominated for an Academy Award. It tells the story of two sons dealing with their mother’s impending death.

BAFTA winning animator transforms cling film into water ones to watch spc c_00035228.jpg
BAFTA winning animator transforms cling film into water
06:04 - Source: CNN

“I think animation really has that ability to tell these dark stories because if things are too real, they can be too hard to watch. Putting it into animation allows the viewer to really get into those dark, quite depressing topics, but with some form of detachment,” she said.

“The Hoover scene took about two weeks to animate, and we had to break everything down as it was sucked up into the Hoover. It was actually very fun that one, we had more people help with that because it was quite physical.”

Jacobs and her team are constantly innovating with their labor-intensive art form.

“I would say the greatest challenge for what we are doing is that it’s something that hasn’t been done before,” she said.

“We’re constantly adding to that language that no one else has yet added to.”

Watch: Inside the delightfully dark world of adult animation

Read: How Pixar animator learned to think like an 11-year-old

Phoebe Parke contributed to this report.