An Evening with Don Hertzfeldt
http://www.animationfestival.ca/index.php?option=com_oiaf&task=showevent&i=496
In a completely random turn of events, I was taking a taxi to the Competition Bureau to file some documents, and somebody on CBC Radio was talking about this animation festival that's going on in Ottawa right now. They plugged an event that was happening not two hours later, a behind-the-scenes talk by Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, about his latest movie Coraline. When I got back to the office I looked at the festival's website, and found that they were also having "An Evening with Don Hertzfeldt." I decided on the spur of the moment to go, so I went to the venue, stood in the public admission line for an hour and a half to try to ensure my seat after all the festival passholders had gottten in, and ended up getting a really great seat.
For those who don't know, Don Hertzfeldt is the man behind "Rejected", which I strongly suggest you watch if you never have. He's done about ten films in total, but I suspect that most people I know, if they know any of his work, would know "Rejected." The event started off with the screening of several of his films (you can check out the program at the above link), and let me tell you, the sound on "Rejected" is strikingly better and more impressive coming from a proper sound system than from a YouTube video. Not all of his films were comical like "Rejected," though. They all had kind of an absurd bent to them--a suspicion I had was later confirmed when he said his strongest influence was Monty Python--but "Everything Will Be OK" and "I am so proud of you" were somewhat more conventional narrative pieces, and surprisingly poignant.
Then Don himself came out, and treated us to a surprise: the very first public screening of a new, unfinished film! He said he'd wanted to do something lighter as a relief from the two films I'd just mentioned, and it was indeed more in the vein of "Rejected" - absurdly comical.
The second part was a question-and-answer period, where they brought out chairs and he sat down with an interviewer on stage, and then there were mikes in the audience as well for people to ask their own questions. It was really fascinating to hear him talk about what he does, the creative process, especially for a not-particularly-creative type like me. Some of the bits that I found most interesting:
In a completely random turn of events, I was taking a taxi to the Competition Bureau to file some documents, and somebody on CBC Radio was talking about this animation festival that's going on in Ottawa right now. They plugged an event that was happening not two hours later, a behind-the-scenes talk by Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, about his latest movie Coraline. When I got back to the office I looked at the festival's website, and found that they were also having "An Evening with Don Hertzfeldt." I decided on the spur of the moment to go, so I went to the venue, stood in the public admission line for an hour and a half to try to ensure my seat after all the festival passholders had gottten in, and ended up getting a really great seat.
For those who don't know, Don Hertzfeldt is the man behind "Rejected", which I strongly suggest you watch if you never have. He's done about ten films in total, but I suspect that most people I know, if they know any of his work, would know "Rejected." The event started off with the screening of several of his films (you can check out the program at the above link), and let me tell you, the sound on "Rejected" is strikingly better and more impressive coming from a proper sound system than from a YouTube video. Not all of his films were comical like "Rejected," though. They all had kind of an absurd bent to them--a suspicion I had was later confirmed when he said his strongest influence was Monty Python--but "Everything Will Be OK" and "I am so proud of you" were somewhat more conventional narrative pieces, and surprisingly poignant.
Then Don himself came out, and treated us to a surprise: the very first public screening of a new, unfinished film! He said he'd wanted to do something lighter as a relief from the two films I'd just mentioned, and it was indeed more in the vein of "Rejected" - absurdly comical.
The second part was a question-and-answer period, where they brought out chairs and he sat down with an interviewer on stage, and then there were mikes in the audience as well for people to ask their own questions. It was really fascinating to hear him talk about what he does, the creative process, especially for a not-particularly-creative type like me. Some of the bits that I found most interesting:
- He works best at night, usually staying up until about 5:00 AM. That way, he's not checking e-mail (because nobody's writing any), he's not answering the phone, he's not running errands - it's just peaceful and productive time.
- He finds that ideas come to him in the most unpredictable ways. He might be in the shower and suddenly come up with the ending for the film he's working on, or be washing dishes and figure out a way to make something work that hasn't been.
- On a related note, he thinks that the worst thing a writer can do is to sit and stare at a blank piece of paper. You can't force yourself to be creative when you're not there. By the same token, when you do get inspired and in the zone, you have to milk it for all it's worth, because it's very hard to get back if you break off from it to do something like sleep.
- At the age he's at now, with no kids, no mortgage, etc., he feels like he has little else to do with his life but make movies, and so he feels that he needs to make as many of them as he can now in case the opportunities to do so aren't there or aren't as frequent later.
- He thinks it's difficult for a small independent filmmaker to complain about free video distribution on the internet, because it's difficult to complain if millions of people are watching your movies, but at the same time the lack of control over the quality of the viewing experience is frustrating. To a certain extent it's the filmmaker's responsibility to make the movie available so that people can actually see it. A movie that no one's watching is a movie that doesn't exist.
- One of the reasons why he seemed to find working on his own so appealing is because he's not beholden to a crew and a release date and it allows him to be as perfectionistic as he wants, reshoot things, take out individual frames, all on his own schedule.