Interview with Anthony Hon, Creator of @DancerOnFilm
Dancer on Film is a Twitter account started by Anthony Hon who posts daily dance clips and GIFs from films, old and new - and not just from Hollywood, but from films around the world. It is one of the few accounts I follow that always brings a smile to my face. A joyful nugget on my Twitter feed on days when it is dominated by depressing world news or annoying film discourse.
I’ve been following Dancer on Film since 2016 and I look forward to the end of year video Dance on Film, a well edited compilation of dance scenes from films released that year. Two years of COVID has made me miss dancing and being on a dance floor, and watching Dancer on Film 2021 made me feel it even more.
It’s not just dance scenes from musicals or set in clubs and parties that makes Dancer on Film 2021 enjoyable, but also the tender dance scenes between mother and child (ANNETTE), a newly married young couple (THE POWER OF A DOG), an old couple (CRY MACHO) and a single woman singing her heart out (THE LOST DAUGHTER).
Please watch the video (the list of films featured in it can be found here), and read my interview with Anthony Hon below where I ask him about starting Dancer on Film, the process of making the Dance on Film videos and his relationship to dance.
Why did you start Dancer on Film?
This may sound a little strange, but I’m not entirely sure why I started Dancer on Film. The account has been going for so long now, since April 2016, that I struggle to recall any reasoning why I decided to embark on this particular project in the first place.
I believe it may simply be a product of impulse with very little planning involved and few expectations as to what it could become. While I did feel that the account had potential to gather a sizeable following, I never expected this silly thing to have grown to this extent or occupy my thoughts as much as it has.
Are you a dancer yourself? When was the last time you danced?
I’m not a dancer at all – I’m practically a statue on the dancefloor. My relationship with dance is purely at spectator level and stems from my love for classic Hollywood musicals. I believe there are few things more joyous on screen than watching a spectacular musical sequence or a great tap number, and I take huge delight in sharing them with other people. I also feel that the musical is quite often subject to derision as a genre, and am hopeful that my account can do a little to redress that perception.
I do believe your account helps create an appreciation to musicals for sure, especially when I see it getting shared. You’ve been doing an annual supercut of dance scenes in film since 2016. This year especially, I found your video made me miss dancing more than ever because we’re entering a 3rd year of the pandemic. How was it like for you putting this video together?
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it a little arduous at times, but I persevere. The most enjoyable part of the process is always when I begin researching and gathering clips, before I even think about putting things together.
It’s fun to discover all the different types of dance scenes that a year has to offer, and it’s exciting when I happen to stumble across some random obscure film that piques my interest. Editing can honestly can be quite a painstaking process, and the part I dread most, but it’s a satisfying feeling when things start to come together.
For me, the joy of editing existing footage is playing around with clips and creating a flow and a narrative that works - the possibilities feel endless, but at some point you know when you get it right. Reaching the point is indeed very satisfying.
How do you plan making a video like this? I assume you keep track of dance scenes in films you watch all year, but I also see you asking for people to send you names of films - I know I’ve sent you some recommendations.
I do try to keep track of all the dance scenes I see each year and put them in a list, but over these last couple of years, possibly due to the pandemic, I find myself watching fewer new releases, so I do rely on other sources for help.
The first place I often turn to is the IMDb keyword search function, which has been an invaluable resource ever since I started this account. As you mention, I also ask my Twitter followers for suggestions, and I can always rely on them to introduce me to some hidden gems that I wouldn’t have otherwise known.
Towards the end of the year I would also binge-watch a lot of trailers, as experience has taught me that dance scenes feature quite regularly in trailers regardless of how prevalent they are in the actual film. It’s admittedly not the most effective technique, but in the case of this year, I uncovered dance scenes from Anaïs in Love and Happening using this method, so my efforts aren’t completely wasted. By the end on the research and planning process, I would’ve usually gathered clips from around a hundred films.
Why did you choose the track Mycket Will Ha Mer by Nova Becc and how do you generally decide on which song to choose for your video?
Deciding on a track is possibly the toughest decision I have to make. I would typically pick a song that was featured in a film that year, so for example I used “We Found Love” by Rhianna from American Honey for my 2016 video and “EKG” by Natalie Portman from Vox Lux for my 2018 video.
The music I use for these videos aren’t necessarily the type of music I would typically listen to, but I’ve found high tempo dance tracks work best for these types of compilations. There have been previous occasions in which I’m halfway through editing before I realise that I made the wrong choice in music and am forced to start over. This happened last year when I desperately wanted to use “Come Meh Way” from Babyteeth but I ultimately just couldn’t get it to work together and regretfully had to abandon it.
This year, however, I really struggled to find an appropriate track to use, but came across NOVA BECC while browsing potential options. She sang a song called “Just Wanna Be Me” for a film called Into the Beat which was released on Netflix last year, and although I knew that song wasn’t right for this video, I decided to go through her back catalogue and that’s when I found "Mycket vill ha mer". As with previous years, after settling on the song, I was then faced with the unenviable task of editing it down to 2 minutes and 20 seconds to fit with the Twitter format, which is something I’ve found tricky in the past but thankfully this one didn’t offer too much trouble.
How do you choose which clips you want to use and how do you start piecing them together?
I essentially edit to the beat of the track, so the clips I choose and where I place them is often dictated by the music’s tempo. Factors such as the speed of a person’s movement, the framing and the cinematography are all considered when deciding what clips are best suited for which part. I also try to find clips that share visual similarities or connections and deliberately place them together to emphasise their symmetry – for example I may place scenes featuring ballet next to each other or scenes set in nightclubs together.
There’s a lot of trial and error involved and sometimes I can spend an age to find the ‘perfect’ clip for a particular section, but despite how frustrating I find it at times, it’s a tedium I’m prepared to suffer through.
I also make a conscious effort to include as many films as possible in these compilations, which probably comes to the detriment of the finished product, but I feel it’s important to celebrate the vast range of films in a given year regardless of their quality and how I personally feel about them. This year’s video included clips from 95 films, which I was fairly pleased with.
What was your favourite dance scene in film in 2021 and why?
I’ve still got a lot to catch up on, so I’m a little reluctant to name a definitive favourite right now – I haven’t even seen Spielberg’s West Side Story yet! But in terms of pure extravagance and technical prowess, I don’t think many tops the “96,000” number from In the Heights. I’m sorry to say I wasn’t as keen on the film as many others, but I couldn’t help but be awed by the spectacular nature of that scene and found myself seduced by all the visual motifs that reference musicals from a bygone era.
The Lost Daughter is possibly my favourite film of last year, so I must give a special mention to Olivia Colman’s wiggling her arms while dancing to “Livin' on a Prayer”. However, I think the dance scenes that stand out most in my mind are the ones found in Julia Ducournau’s Titane. Each dance almost tells a mini story in its own right with each scene signifying a different stage in Alexia's development – it’s a great demonstration of how body movement can convey emotion, vulnerability and turmoil without the need of spoken dialogue.
Thanks Anthony for this interview. Follow Dancer on Film on Twitter if you aren’t already, and donate to support through this link, https://ko-fi.com/danceronfilm.
Here are the Dancer on Film videos made between 2016 and 2020 (there was no video made in 2017):