Interview with Matt Layzell

We catch up with London based illustrator and animator Matt Layzell about working with Treat, his brother Paul, and his “beans n’ meat feast pizza” of a studio!

Tuesday: Firstly, will you please describe what you do?

Matt: I’m an animator and illustrator living in London. I mainly animate using 2-D methods but combined with a sprinkle of computer wizardry.

Tuesday: You belong to a London-based animation collective called “Treat Studios”–how did that get started?

Matt:We all met at Kingston University and decided to form a little group. It was mostly to stay working together and to help each other out with doing and getting jobs. It’s worked, to an extent, in that collectively we’ve been able to promote ourselves better and to take on bigger jobs that maybe on our own would have been too daunting.

Tuesday: What sort of projects have you guys worked on? What was your favorite that you’ve done and why?

Matt: We’ve worked on a lot of stuff, some good projects some bad, but never the less, a wide range. Our work has included music videos, adverts, live visuals and exhibitions. My personal favorites were the E4 X-mas idents I directed a while back. We’ve done quite alot of stuff for E4 and they’re always pretty cool in letting us do what we want but we had a lot of freedom with those. They came out totally how I wanted them, which can be rare thing when working to tight deadlines and low budgets.

Tuesday: You recently collaborated with your brother Paul on a video for London based “Mazes”–What is it like working with your brother on projects? Any plans to collaborate further?

Matt: It was really fun. I pretty much spent my entire childhood drawing pictures with Paul so it feels pretty natural working on stuff with him. It took us a while to do (about a year) but only because we were very busy with other work so it had to be an on and off thing. At the moment we’re still both busy with our own work but I’m sure we’ll do another collaboration in the near future. No plans yet as to what it might be but there are brews, brews and stews… of ideas.

Tuesday: Some of your videos incorporate some pretty disgusting (read: awesome) elements. If you weren’t doing client based work or had a client that let you have total freedom, what project would you do?

Matt: I’ve recently become really interested in quantum mechanics and astro physics. I don’t understand half of it but it’d be great to make a short film with a physicist and try and convey some of these weird ideas about what everything is made of in an abstract way. A real eye and brain churner, something lumpy with bits of carrot in it.

Tuesday: Are you doing any personal work right now? What is it?

Matt: I’ve been pitching some ideas to Nickelodeon for cartoon shows which will be good if they like any of them. I feel like I’m at that stage where I’d like to work on something more long term. I’ve worked at Cartoon Network in the past so I’ve seen what its like and doing your own show seems really fun. Also I’m directing a section of a new film based on Graham Chapman’s life story, told in his own words. There’s a few other people I know also working on it, its going to be in stereoscopic 3-D and should be showing in actual real-life cinemas so I’m excited about that.

Tuesday: Because I’ve visited Treat, I know that you guys live and work in the same space. What’s it like to eat, sleep, and breathe with your collaborators all of the time?

Matt: We’ve actually spread out a bit since you last saw us, although the studio’s still going less of us reside in the country. We’ve got peoples in Zurich, Berlin and New york now. I think in general all of us in the collective feel like doing their own thing more, which is cool. Treat will still be around but I think we’re all going to use it more like a platform to showcase our own work. As for living, eating and sleeping together, its disgusting, like living in a pig pen… no, its cool. I lived with most of the guys through University so its a brotherly and sisterly love all round.

Tuesday: If you could describe your work only using junk food, how would you describe it?

Matt: A beanz’n'meat feast pizza with ‘Italian style’ cheese sprinkles, half defrosted in the microwave, sitting on a bed of dolly mixtures.

Tuesday: Anything else we should know about you, your work, or your studio?

Matt: Some of my drawings have been printed as t-shirts by the kind guys at Super Superficial. I’m wearing one now and I must say, it just feels great, real smooth, great shape, real good.

Be sure to check out Matt’s blog and the Treat Studios website!

Images: Matt Layzell

• Tags
• Matt Layzell
• Interview
• Q&A
• Animation
• Illustration
• London
• UK