A noir-ish tale centred around a packet of menthol Vogue cigarettes; intrigued by the allure of a mysterious woman and talk of political espionage, our narrator finds herself enticed into an addiction. Intrigued by the allure of a mysterious woman and talk of political espionage, our narrator finds herself enticed into an addiction. It's a cut-out animation using entirely painted fabric and embroidered parts.

The story is based on a real experience of meeting a woman in Sri Lanka who was committing political activism against her home government. and she has since gone on to win an Emmy for a documentary she was making. In this highly fictional adaptation, she is a spy of many kinds, committing espionage. The film title Made For Duty Overseas is taken from the back of the menthol vogue packet using the technique of elimination poetry. The score was written by Oran Johnson and recorded with a live 16 piece chamber orchestra.

The director Katie King who made this piece as her RCA graduation film notes: 'The film making process feels to me like being a kind of detective sculptor. When working creatively on anything, I always start with an idea and a reference and build a world around that, following whatever comes up in my research and tests. This story began with a real midnight encounter in Sri Lanka - sharing menthol Vogue cigarettes with another woman, discussing her brave political activism against her home country government (who has since won an Emmy for this work). Back in London, I reconstructed the scene of us speaking by the pool in paper on the multiplane and when I returned home from the studio I found the same brand of cigarettes outside my flat. We haven’t been able to buy menthol cigarettes in the UK for years so in the very first place of smoking them in Sri Lanka, it had been interesting to me. The story then emerged out of my own neurotic fantasy that I might be a person worthy of assassination or being followed (given said conversation), however they were simply my own dropped pack that had been given me.

This initial coincidence triggered the film’s noir approach. Like in classic noir films, the narrative begins with an inciting event before logic dissolves and the detective meanders around a strange string of events. The opening of Made For Duty Overseas directly references Sunset Boulevard, which I was drawn to make a parallel with since similarly, the protagonist is drawn into the orbit of an enigmatic woman in a grand setting, seduced by her ambitious claims. A lot of the noir is also carried by Oran Johnson's original score he wrote and then recorded with a 16 piece chamber orchestra which watching be performed in real life with the film must be the ultimate bucket list goal.

The film is made entirely from textiles in the cut out animation style. I was inspired initially by the animation artist Amy Lockhart's (unmade) Dizzler (2011ish). By making the film exclusively from textiles, I essentially imposed a set of conditions on myself whereby I had to constantly trouble shoot. I could not simply create the water using frame by frame drawings or a digitial effect, for example. I worked with Huan Wang a textiles student from the RCA who proposed that the water be made using two layers of polyester overlapping as it creates a strange pattern. I then animated the water frame by frame by slowly moving the top layer. The majority of the film is made from velvet however I really loved the way in which light would bounce from the silk parts, which to me, had a very noir feeling.

The film ultimately comments on how wars, amplified by media sensationalism, persistently backgrounds our lives. It aims to challenge the way groups of people impose isolation on  whole demographics of people whose governments’ actions they oppose. This more often creates situations where younger people who already lack an ability to safely protest their governments are isolated further, as well as angering those who feel wrongly typcasted. Ultimately the protagonist of Made For Duty Overseas hears this woman’s story and she wants to be like her, but misses the point by entirely identifying with the brand of cigarettes rather than the woman of interests' actions. There is a lack of serious attention giving to the real event in question. The title “Made For Duty Overseas”, came from elimination poetry from the back of the cigarette packet, is an advocation to recognise our shared humanity across borders, nations, religions, race, politically and so on.'

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