Jan Swankmayer

Jan Swankmayer was a Czech artist and surrealist film maker. He is most famous for his bizarre dark stop motion films and surreal creepy claymation. However, he worked in a lot of different mediums and even did some famous live action films. He worked and lived in communist Czech and had to do a lot of his work underground when it was banned in 1972, because of this most of his work is based on the dark sides of communism and politics. His films have very strong meanings shown in dark sinister ways, which sometimes are quite hard to follow. 

 The Quay Brothers

The quay brothers are American animators who live currently in London. They were commissioned by Channel 4 after their work was thought to be influenced by Swankmayer. However, they had never heard of him before but still made the documentary. Only one of their films has speech and most of it is gibberish. They have a very dark depressing theme that runs though their work, a lot of it using creepy toys and dolls. There work is always very surreal with an edge of humour. Their work is also very hard to follow even though they usually have deep meanings.