Creative Connections: Coggins & Antonsen

Likening his role as director to a captain steering a ship through choppy seas, Caswell Coggins, whose diverse body of work ranges from Lily Allen promos to Xbox ads, insists a film needs a “map”; his cartographer of choice being storyboarder Kore Antonsen, who also helps him come up with concepts.

Though their passions may differ – Antonsen once had a career in surfing; Coggins makes contemporary dance films – as the duo tell Carol Cooper, their love of riffing, bodies in motion and teamwork makes filmmaking plain sailing

It was one of those Christmas-is-over-deal-with-it January Monday mornings that make people want to lie down in the middle of the M25. For Londoners, there was also a train and tube strike, horizontal rain and gusts of bitter, brolly-breaking wind. A dark day. Yet, when I staggered into the London offices of Another Film Company, the sun seemed to be shining indoors.

In a bright, cheery meeting room there was a plate of good biscuits, some fine tea and Caswell Coggins with a ready smile, awaiting the arrival of his stalwart storyboarder Kore Antonsen, who was driving up from Somerset. Although they’ve had a close and productive working relationship since the mid-2000s, thanks to Skype, they’ve not actually been in the same room together for five years. I was chuffed to be present at this warm reunion.

Concepts born in a Queen’s Park kitchen

Their partnership started when Coggins was directing promos at music video company Draw Pictures and Antonsen started helping him draw concepts for pitches. “A while after meeting Kore, I called him and said, ‘Do you want to do music videos with me?’” recalls Coggins. “We’d sit in Kore’s kitchen in his flat in Queen’s Park, drink cups of tea, and hack on for hours about everything but work.”

Antonsen says that during this time, they were “developing the process of riffing, of coming up with ideas together”. Before Antonsen moved out west they had a solid five years of working together. Now they collaborate virtually – Antonsen scans sketches onto a draw-on digital screen that he can share and amend live via Skype with his clients. Coggins says they’re so used to “hanging out” that their Skype meetings feel as if they’re in the same room.

Both of them honed their skills via hard work and experimentation. Knowing he wanted to direct from a young age, Coggins skipped film school and worked as a runner on shoots for companies including Tony Kaye Films, and served apprenticeships with the BBC and in first and second AD roles.

Similarly, Antonsen, though always a gifted artist, didn’t go to art school – in fact his first career was in a very different arena. Growing up in Australia, he got the surfing bug, left to surf the world at 18 and ended up, at just 22, owning what was then London’s only specialist surf and skateboard shop.

“I was very into the business but the surf industry died at the end of the 2000s, so I quit. But I’d been drawing a poster for the shop when someone said ‘Have you ever thought about doing storyboards?’.” He started experimenting with airbrushing and photorealism and ended up doing a mood board for Victoria Beckham.

Coggins also loves experimenting and will try anything if it deepens his knowledge. Wanting to improve his ability to direct actors, he took acting classes for two years. His passion for contemporary dance, which led to the creation of his feature dance documentary Destino, resulted in his involvement in the Alchemy Project, a dance therapy initiative that treats young adults with psychosis – he spent a week studying dance with the youngsters so he could gain their trust when filming them.

Even if their interests and backgrounds differ, the pair say they share a way of viewing the world. “Directors are always looking for details in life that make you think,” says Antonsen, “I have the same way of observing. I see how things might tell a story, or how I might twist something in a weird way.” Their varied interests can also be of help, “Caswell uses me because I bring a different angle. I’m into graphic novels and all kinds of visual imagery and I might see something he wouldn’t look at in the same way.”

When Coggins wins a pitch, he asks the producer to call Antonsen. “Your language with [regular collaborators] becomes sort of invisible. You trust these people. You’re trusting them with your job. Plus, I’m always interested to see how Kore will interpret a treatment.”

Coggins’ call for close collaboration

I point out that it’s rare for a director to talk about his storyboard artist so much. But Coggins says the storyboard has an essential role as a film’s bible or map – it’s part of his emphasis on good preparation, communication and close collaboration: “It’s fundamental to everybody involved,” he says.

“You can write a good treatment, but then you have to transpose what’s in your mind into something that everyone can talk about. If you take people with you throughout the process, they feel it’s a closer collaboration. The main thing I’ve found is not to surprise creatives and clients halfway through the shoot with things you’ve decided independently – it unsettles things.When you work with an ad agency, it’s not us and them, you’re collaborating to produce something for a client, so it has to be inclusive and having a blueprint, like a good storyboard, allows everyone to share in it.”

For something that is essentially a map, it’s remarkable how much detail Antonsen puts into his drawings. Coggins is enthusiastic about their quality: “It isn’t just about being able to draw. There are lots of people who can draw, but Kore brings something much more conceptual, much more atmospheric in the early stages. That’s what is key about them – when you have a storyboard that has all that mood and texture and you show it to a DP and the creatives they all start to get very excited, because they can feel the atmosphere early on.”

Idris Elba’s balletic backwards blowout

The duo explain they don’t collaborate on Coggins’ dance-based films, such as the Channel 4 Random Acts series, as it would be too restrictive for the dancers; instead those were worked out with the choreographers and DPs.

However Antonsen does have an interest in bodies in motion. “I’m constantly drawing the shape of moving bodies. If you see a skateboarder doing a trick you can see the style, if he’s got the right hunched shoulders, and I like to capture those little weird, quirky bits.”

I suggest to them that there could be synergy between their different passions – contemporary dance and skateboarding/surfing. Antonsen agrees: “In surfing competitions you’re judged on style. It’s not just how many waves you catch, it’s what you do as a performer. It’s like a dance.”

Their shared obsession with movement came together in the trailer for TV show Luther with Idris Elba – a brilliant exploration of the character’s destructiveness, in which his total trashing of his office is played backwards in slo-mo. It’s an elegant ballet of chairs describing graceful arcs as they are unhurled across the room, while exploded detritus unexplodes from chaos back to order, creating a calm that, in the final frame, encapsulates Luther’s ultimate coolness.

The concept, developed by Coggins and a BBC creative director, threw up a unique set of problems and required very precise storyboards. “If you look at the action, then at the boards, we were very faithful to them, it’s pretty close in terms of the movement. In fact, there was only one of Kore’s boards we didn’t shoot in the end,” recalls Coggins.

Observing the pair together you don’t feel that one is more dominant, or one extrovert/one introvert. They both seem equally enthusiastic, yet chilled. So how do their temperaments match? “Kore’s very easy-going so we can sit in a room together and not get on each other’s tits,” says Coggins, “though we do argue about work. Kore can get hot-headed about a frame and I’ll tell him it won’t work. But what’s vital is that you ultimately like someone, so we can argue about work, but it’s not personal. Some conflict can create good things in a working relationship, too – as long as it’s kind and positive.”

The most notable thing they share is a remarkably ego-free love of the process. “Being a director is about compromise,” says Coggins, “particularly in advertising. It’s not about you. It’s about you being asked to realise a vision. As a director, you’re steering a ship through a stormy sea.” Antonsen also sees himself as a creative conduit. “I’m just a player. I can suggest loads of things, but I’ll never get too personal about it. It’s not my idea, I’m a creative tool for the director to use. My work is to be part of the team process.”

Unsung heroes accessing the joy

I ask if Antonsen feels the storyboard artist is an unsung hero. “I think everybody involved in a film is an unsung hero,” he says. “Even if it’s the gaffer doing bits and pieces, it’s a team effort, everybody in this business puts in a lot of time and effort. But at least we’re doing what we love. I really like drawing, I can draw for hours. What enables me to do this kind of work is I’m willing to do lots of changes, to put the hours in, because I enjoy it. I don’t really need any more than the satisfaction I get from drawing and getting paid for it.”

Like any successful creative pairing, Coggins and Antonsen not only share a lack of preciousness about, and enjoyment of, their individual roles but they genuinely relish teamwork. “Filmmaking should be a joy,” says Coggins. “I think I can tell when I’ve watched a piece of work that’s been a joy to make, because it comes off the screen. From an ad to a film to a piece of drama, it should be a good process.”

I leave the pair to their sunny reunion of riffing and joy and head out to the troubled streets, where people with joyless jobs battle through the rain.