Review Fix Exclusive Queens World Film Festival Coverage: Catya Plate Talks ‘Hanging by A Thread’

Review Fix chats with filmmaker Catya Plate who discusses her film “Hanging by A Thread,” set for at a run at this year’s summer screening session of the Queens World Film Festival.

For more on the film and the festival, click here.

Review Fix: What was the inspiration for your film?

Catya Plate: “Hanging By A Thread” is inspired by a series of paintings (“Button In The Garden Of Earthly Delights”) that I created, in which “clothespin freaks”, two-headed figures made of a clear clothespin and sewn pieces, are depicted in a futuristic, verdant environment next to my dog, ‘Button’, where humans merely exist in fragments. I invented the “clothespin freaks” in a series of drawings in 2003 realizing that these small, freakishly funny-looking characters had many more adventures ahead of them. In fact, I felt that being at the center of a new mythology would give them the potential to comment on our angst-ridden times in a serio-comic way.  Without being consciously aware of it , these paintings had become story boards that led to “Hanging By A Thread”. Eager to find out how the “clothespin freak” would evolve and transform in different media, I created artist books, sculptures, and paintings. Throughout the course of development of these diverse visual art creations, I became compelled to give the “clothespin freaks” a voice of their own and for me there was no better medium with which to accomplish this, than with stop-motion animation and film.

Review Fix: What was the most challenging part of making it?

Plate: “Hanging By A Thread” is a stop-motion animated film. Stop-motion is a very physical and difficult technique that requires, among many other things, a lot of patience. The most challenging part is that you never quite know what the next challenge will be.  Creating the characters, the sets, and the sense of complex motion at 24 frames per second is a constant challenge as well.  You are always solving problems and learning new things.  It helps if you love very detail-oriented work, which I do. I also embrace this medium because, although it’s the hardest and most challenging thing I’ve ever done,  it’s also the most gratifying, allowing me to realize my artistic vision.

Review Fix: How do you want it to be remembered?

Plate: In a FilmThreat review, Mark Bell wrote: “‘Hanging By A Thread’ is a short film that welcomes interpretation and mental involvement. For me, the short explores the idea of creativity being the salvation of humanity, with a nice assist by other elements of Nature.”   I love that and if “Hanging By A Thread” could also be remembered for being fun, wacky, quirky and for being realized as part of a much bigger story — that would be great. 

Review Fix: How does it feel to be a part of the festival?

Plate: I feel grateful to be part of the close and caring community that Katha and Don have created.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Plate: There is a lot on the horizon for me. I’m currently working on “Meeting MacGuffin: An animated Ecological Thriller”, the sequel of “Hanging By A Thread” and the second in a trilogy of shorts.  I have just released the trailer and there are two more scenes to go before production wraps, hopefully by November. Once production is complete, I’ll be hitting the film festival circuit.  After that I will work on the last short of the “Hanging By A Thread” trilogy (working title” “Leaving Las Nogas”) and then onward to the creation of the stop-motion animated feature film “Hanging By A Thread–The Beginning”. That should keep me busy for a while.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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