Britt Lower’s CIRCUS PERSON utilizes a circus of images, moments and animation in tale of a woman finding herself after a breakup

Britt Lower’s 17-minute CIRCUS PERSON begins typically enough. A woman named Ava (Lower) has learned her fiance’ is cheating; she removes her engagement ring and submerges in the bathtub. Ava is an artist but presents herself fairly conventionally; the other woman, Luna, is a guitar playing alterna-chick with Betty Page black hair and that “manic pixie” energy of so many indie film dream girl fantasies made by men. Ava pegs herself as a metaphorical square to Luna’s circle, wryly noting they are in a triangle. And then she decides that, like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, she can be both. Not for her husband, but for herself, if she’s brave enough. The circus beckons. For it is, after all, the ultimate creative circle, figuratively and literally.

But as Ava becomes a circle, so too does the movie around her. Interspersing realism with vintage circus footage, dreamlike moments, mime, and stop-motion animation using both Lower’s full body and animated paintings on her body-as-canvas. There’s also a talking fish…sort of. Lower intends the short to be the start of something more, and with this level of visual flair, it’ll be exciting to see what happens to Ava once she moves past her break-up.

Films Gone Wild had a chance to speak to Lower over email about her film, which has screened at several film festivals this year, her process and next steps. Some responses have been edited slightly for clarity.

FGW: I notice you met collaborator Alex Knell during a clown class. Was that the beginning of the interest in the circus, or an outgrowth of a pre-existing interest?

Lower: I’ve always had a soft spot for circus, and I know Alex Knell – our creative producer and editor — has as well. But yes, taking that 500 clown class together in Chicago certainly became a touchstone for both of us in deepening our curiosity. The course was held at Lookingglass Theater, which has a rich tradition of incorporating circus arts into theatrical narratives, and I think Alex and I both were inspired by that fusion. I first became enamored by circus in high school while working as a children’s face-painter in the summertime, and meeting circus performers on the road. I’ve always had a bit of romance for traveling with an art form.

FGW: Using your own body for stop-motion, both as object and canvas, reminded me somewhat of the groundbreaking Peter Gabriel music videos of the mid-80s. Was that part of the inspiration, and if not, what did inspire such creative use of animation?

Lower: I love that reference. It wasn’t my jumping off point, but I’m sure those videos were planted somewhere in my subconscious. (*immediately goes down Peter Gabriel rabbit hole on youtube*). Exploring the body as a canvas that can also move and feel and do was always an important part of this project for me. Both circus art and face-paint remind us that art isn’t just something to look at in a gallery, but also something you can become. For Ava, heartbreak is permission to explore who she is becoming in this new solo chapter of her life, and I wanted that investigation to feel very physical.

I had been tinkering around with the idea of depicting her inner life on the surface of her skin using face-paint, but the idea to animate the paint didn’t come until I saw a piece called ‘RUBY’ made by London-based artist, Emma Allen, in which she hand paints stop-motion animation on her own face, frame by frame. The effect is stunning and delicate and I was just blown away by the whole thing. I was lucky enough to make contact with her, and though she was unable to fly in for this project, she kindly coached me through the technical aspect. I then took what she had taught me and sketched a very basic animation on my iPad, which Christopher Agostino, our body paint artist, expertly hand painted onto my skin. He also helped design the ‘Vitruvian Mime’ as we came to call it – an image that combines Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man with vintage clown make-up. Shaina Paulson, an LA-based makeup artist, was on set to help me create the final body painted image of the film, which she and I painted together tandem style at 4:30am right before I trekked through a freezing cold creek. I highly recommend becoming a painting!

FGW: If you couldn’t be a filmmaker, would you ever want to be a circus performer? Or perhaps, would you ever want to be both?

Lower: One-hundred-thousand-percent, yes and both. The few times I’ve flown on a trapeze (I’m a beginner) were euphoric…but I’d really better leave that to the professionals. As for being both, I suppose, in a way, making this film was just that. I got to be a ringmaster-of-sorts, not only by building the circus within the film, but also bringing together the talents of all the different departments on and off set.

FGW: Do you see strong similarities between the life of a circus performer and the life of a filmmaker?

Lower: Absolutely. From what I’ve experienced, life in the circus and life in the film are practically and poetically parallel universes. In both, there’s a seasonal aspect as well as the camaraderie of building towards a common goal alongside a chosen family. A film set and a circus are both tiny traveling towns filled with eccentric characters, tents, trailers, and – dare I say – a bit of magic.

FGW: I understand there may be plans to expand this into a feature, or possibly more. Can you hint at where you might see the story going once the break-up is no longer Ava’s main motivating factor?

Lower: Yep! There is definitely more of the CIRCUS PERSON world to be explored. This film will act as the introduction to a longer format film anthology series that follows the same small (animal-free) traveling circus that Ava has joined. Each episode reveals a different circus artist and explores not only the death-defying feats that ready them for the unknown, but their daring hearts as well.

FGW: How’s Potato the fish doing these days?

Lower: Potato just turned 1 year old. Since I’m currently in New York for work, Potato is boarding at Alexandre Naufel (our cinematographer)’s lovely urban farm in Venice, CA alongside a very old turtle named Yoko and several chickens.

FGW: Popcorn or candy?

Lower: Popcorn forever.