Anna Ginsburg: Drawing from life

Not long into her talk at OFFF Festival in Barcelona, animation director Anna Ginsburg casually recounted her first experience of achieving an orgasm, inspired by a rather hot and heavy viewing of Cruel Intentions. As icebreakers go, this was bold – but then again, so is her entire body of work. 

Delicately balancing the personal and political with a playful sense of humour and a vibrant palette, Ginsburg’s work ranges from intimate passion projects and punchy PSAs to colourful commercials, for clients spanning Selfridges to Breast Cancer Now. She is also Creative Director of Strange Beast, a London-based animation production company with a 50% female director roster, where she is passionate about nurturing young talent.

Above: Strange Beast creative director and animator, Anna Ginsburg.

Her journey into animation started on an architecture foundation course, where an inspiring tutor suggested she experiment with a new medium for her final project. The result was a rather ‘emo’ animation about the 2008 financial crash, in which bankers climbed the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf and shot themselves in the head. “It was all cut-out, stop motion, shot in my mum’s spare room with a shaky tripod” she laughs, as we catch up after her talk. “I remember watching it back and thinking: This is it. This is so cool.”  

When an animation addresses something with heart, it moves me more than live action, because it’s so universally accessible and powerful.

Music videos became fertile ground for experimentation, using music and lyrics as a structure on which to hang her visuals. It was a space to be playful, like the time she covered an actor in chips to entice a mob of seagulls into the shot. 

Above: A costume made of chips made for one of Ginsburg's early music videos. 

A gorgeous stop-motion animation for Bombay Bicycle Club followed, featuring a painstakingly micro-knitted quilt that unraveled in a single, nerve-wracking take. “That ended up winning the Scottish Young BAFTA. It gave me a professional piece out in the world and helped me start getting more music video work.” 

Getting trolled on that video was one of the happiest times of my life. It felt like the work was starting real discussion, not just preaching to the choir.

A dedicated Beyoncé fan - she’s been to every world tour - and a lover of pop culture, Ginsburg draws inspiration from strong female icons, fine art and dance, especially the noughties choreography of Destiny’s Child music videos. When it comes to animation, though, she’s selective: “A lot of animation is fantasy or sci-fi, and that alone doesn’t hook me. But when an animation addresses something with heart, it moves me more than live action, because it’s so universally accessible and powerful.” 

Feminism, body positivity and dismantling shame around female sexuality are strong threads running through the colourful tapestry of Ginsburg’s work. In her talk, she shared how these themes were shaped by personal experiences, including witnessing her sister’s struggle with an eating disorder. After an emotional epiphany in a festival Portaloo, where she experienced a sudden and profound new appreciation for her own body, Ginsburg was inspired to create her sublime and fluid animation, What Is Beauty? 

Even a pregnant pause or emotional waver in the voice can be visualised in a way that draws attention to the feeling. It also protects the subject.

This features stylised, illustrative imagery of fertility goddesses and shifting body ideals from ancient Greece to the present day. Ginsburg was shocked that it received so much attention online – not all of it positive – but asserts that: “Getting trolled on that video was one of the happiest times of my life. It felt like the work was starting real discussion, not just preaching to the choir.”  

Ginsburg puts the film’s success partially down to its lack of spoken words. With its morphing, animated visuals paired with a punchy track, What Is Beauty transcends language barriers, “That made it universally shareable”, she explains, “It’s something you couldn’t achieve with photographic imagery.” She also champions animation as a uniquely powerful documentary tool, especially when “dealing with issues that are sensitive, intimate, emotional; things that make people feel shame.” Interviewing subjects without “sticking a camera in their face,” she says, helps them open up. 

[Animation] also allows empathy to flow from the audience to the subject, because you’re not judging them based on appearance.

Inspired in part by her own experiences of sexual shaming, and by Jamie McCartney’s Wall of Vaginas, which comprises 400 vulvas cast in plaster, amongst other influences, Ginsburg set out to normalise the complexity and diversity of intimacy and female genitalia through animation. The project began with candid voice recordings: honest conversations between friends about sex and 'normal' body parts. “I work with sound as a starting point” she explains. “Even a pregnant pause or emotional waver in the voice can be visualised in a way that draws attention to the feeling. It also protects the subject.”  

Around this time, Channel 4 reached out to Ginsburg looking to curate late-night animated content and immediately loved these genital animations. With just £2,000 and a four-week turnaround, Private Parts was born. She emailed twelve of her favourite animators around the world, not expecting a response. “Surprisingly, eleven responded,” she explains. Each created their own interpretation, guided only by a shared colour palette and one round of feedback. 

I hope that even through my commercial work I’m helping shine a light on the female experience in an authentic way.

“There’s anonymity to this type of filmmaking, which means people feel freer,” she says. “It also allows empathy to flow from the audience to the subject, because you’re not judging them based on appearance.” Another brilliant example of using sound as a starting point is her characterful short film Just the Two of Us, which was born out of a strange longing for normal life during lockdown and a recording she’d made of a woman singing on a London bus. 

Because of films like What Is Beauty and Private Parts, the type of commercial work Ginsburg is approached for often centres on women’s health and wellness; period products, menopause campaigns, and breast cancer PSAs. “There’s been a shift in attitudes recently, but fertility and endometriosis are still rarely discussed,” she says. “I hope that even through my commercial work I’m helping shine a light on the female experience in an authentic way.” 

If I can make an inspiring ad for a period product that reaches a young woman who’d never go to a film festival, that’s powerful.

Although she admits to having taken on soul-crushing jobs early in her career that she’d never put her name to, her recent personal projects have carved out a commercial niche where she hopes her work can make a meaningful impact. “You don’t make money from the personal work itself, but it opens the doors. I drew vaginas in Private Parts, and then I was paid by brands to do that for the next two years.” 

“It’s tricky though,” she adds. “I wish we had more accessible art and culture, and that it didn’t have to come through advertising. But if I can make an inspiring ad for a period product that reaches a young woman who’d never go to a film festival, that’s powerful. I just wish we didn’t have to rely on capitalism to get those messages out.” 

Filming Beyoncé dancing in space was my original dream, but now I think that’d be terrible for the environment.

Ginsburg is currently working on her most ambitious personal project yet: Hag, an animated short supported by the BFI Short Form Animation Fund, awarding National Lottery funding and being produced at Strange Beast. The short film follows a 30-something woman who, upon leaving a relationship that isn’t right for her, instantly transforms into a haggard witch. “With hair wild like Medusa, she leaps onto a broomstick and flies out the window,” Anna excitedly explains. “It’s a dark comedy that uses animated archetypes to explore themes of societal pressure, internal longing, aging, and the ticking of the biological clock.” 

Above: A GIF from Ginsburg's new short film, Hag, funded by the BFI through the Film Fund and National Lottery.

What’s next for Ginsburg? Alongside completing and releasing Hag, she hopes to keep creating work that opens up conversations around women’s experiences, sexuality and health in a light-hearted, accessible way. And her dream project? “Filming Beyoncé dancing in space was my original dream, but now I think that’d be terrible for the environment,” she laughs. 

Even if the future of advertising is uncertain, there’ll always be a place for entertainment.

“Really, my dream is to get Hag commissioned by a studio as a feature or series. The scope for collaboration on the project would be incredible. I’d love to work with an even bigger team of incredible musicians and actors and designers. Charlotte Ritchie voices the main character in the short and was amazing to work with, collaborating with people who inspire you is the best feeling!"