Missed Aches is a 2009 16mmshort 2D animated film directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. It was narrated by Taylor Mali and is based on his poem “The Impotence of Proofreading”, with sound design by Normand Roger and Pierre Yves Drapeau, music by Pierre Yves Drapeau with Denis Chartrand and Normand Roger, text animation by Brian Kinkley, character design and animation by Don Flores and storyboards by Dan Schaeffer.
Synopsis
Missed Aches demonstrates how the shortcomings of spellcheck can result in unexpected double entendres. It combines animated characters with moving text and was written and narrated by poet Taylor Mali, who led teams to four championships in the National Poetry Slam. The Black Maria Film Festival said: “This uproarious animation by one of the nation’s iconic animation artists colorfully serves up a cascade of malapropisms.”
Process
At the 2006 Wordstock Festival, Portland's big literary celebration, Priestley joined a sidebar workshop where two dozen people were waiting to hear Taylor Mali speak. Mali entered and performed the poem “ of Proofreading”. Priestley says: “The 70 something lady in a knit suit sitting next to me laughed so hard she fell off her chair. I immediately fell in love with this poem and desperately tried to connect with Mali after the reading but he was occupied by vending supervisors who would not allow him to sell his books. That same day, I found Mali’s email address online and sent him a message, following up with many more messages, drawings, videos and gifts. I must have worn him down, because over a year later I got a reply and our collaboration began. Taylor Mali was delightful to work with. He recorded a new version of the poem in his apartment, sent it to me and I used it to design the storyboard and timing for Missed Aches. I wanted to avoid illustrating the narration and created scenes that had some dissonance with the text but still related to it visually in several ways.” Priestley met filmmaker and compositor Brian Kinkley after seeing his graduation film, The Dilemma at the Art Institute of Portland. She immediately saw the possibilities of adding animated text to the backgrounds of Missed Aches and hired Kinkley to do the animation. They went on to collaborate on five more films: Eye Liner, Split Ends, Bottle Neck, North of Blue, and Jung & Restless.
Soundtrack
Priestley had always wanted to work with famed Canadian composer/sound designer Normand Roger, who spent 40 years creating soundtracks for the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal, Canada. She contacted his wife, filmmaker and National Film Board of Canada Executive Producer Marcy Page who was a friend and that paved the way for Priestley to collaborate with Normand Roger. Roger collaborated on the sound design and music with award-winning composer Pierre Yves Drapeau and with accomplished composer Denis Chartrand on the music. Both Drapeau and Chartrand also work with the National Film Board of Canada.
