Rob Munday

Short of the Week regular Joseph Pierce returns to the site for an impressive fourth time with his live-action short The Baby Shower. Ditching his trademark rotoscope approach to prove he could “make the audience squirm without being able to make a face melt or turn someone into a baboon”, the director’s regular animated style might gone, but his eye for dark-comedy remains.

“This was never going to be a warm comedy about the hilarious pitfalls of parenting”

“As with my animated shorts this is a film about the masks we wear”, Pierce reveals when discussing the inspiration behind his film, “the tension between our internal dialogue and what happens when we let our façades slip. This was never going to be a warm comedy about the hilarious pitfalls of parenting, it’s about a relationship in crisis, which gives the film a universal appeal”.

With the story for The Baby Shower brewing in Pierce’s head for the last three and a half years – ever since he became a father himself – it’s easy to see why the writer/director describes this film as an “anxiety letter to parenting”. On the surface The Baby Shower is a film centred around a young couple dealing with the (very) recent loss of a late term pregnancy, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find a well-considered satire on the pressure society puts on couples (of a certain age) to have children.

“I expect the audience to laugh and cringe in equal measures”

“Something about impending parenthood lets much of our social graces drop”, says Pierce “when else is it ok to touch a woman’s belly uninvited, or discuss the intricacies of vaginal tearing? I expect the audience to laugh and cringe in equal measures and if the film gets people talking, even better”.

Ten years since I was first introduced to Pierce’s work, at the London International Animation Festival (in 2008), his previous trilogy of rotoscoped shorts still hold firm in my memory, even though its been 4-years since I last watched one. And though I’m sure some fans of his work will be sad to see his twisted rotoscope style missing here, I for one think we should celebrate his move to step out of his comfort zone and I look forward to seeing how this foray into live-action impacts his future work.

Talking of future work, Pierce is now working on a graphic novel series, a few feature scripts and an ambitious new animated short (based on a Will Self short story), all sandwiched in-between ‘dad duties’. Quiet times ahead then!