When making kids' animation, who are you really trying to appeal to? Certainly not cynical critics. March Entertainment's Jon Izen managed to hit the motherload with his wacky Black and White series of micro-shorts, which features two tiles named David and Steven, interacting in weird and wonderful ways.
In Part #1 of this exclusive interview, Izen talked about how a bad review inspired this new series. In this installment, he discusses some of his more esoteric influences, plus his ideas for a Black and White feature film.
S101: It may be me, but I’m seeing a lot going on here: I mentioned Dada earlier, there’s some absurdist comedy. There are surreal visual elements, especially when David spins the screen in one short. I know you hate the conventions, but there are those elements sneaking in there–
Jon: “Oh yeah, you live on Earth and you absorb those things. Truthfully, I looked to Pop Art, because I did Fine Arts before I went to film school, but I was always a rough, crude drawer. I’ve had the training for years, but what I enjoyed was pure Pop Art: Andy Warhol or Claes Oldenburg, Jean-Michel Basquiat . . . that’s the era that I enjoyed when I was coming up.
"Because I didn’t know what I was going to do when I came out of Fine Arts, I applied for film school because another guy in my class was doing it, and they had a nice brochure, so I thought, “Maybe if I can draw, I’ll try that.” That was it, it wasn’t this love of animation my whole life, I love drawing and art.
“Then I realized that I either push the path of learning what I need to learn and get into the industry or learning what I need to learn and trying my own stuff to keep myself happy. I was never one to have a job and just sit at my job: my job was almost always secondary, and my push was always to make my stuff.
How do you brainstorm your ideas?
“Some of it I’ll write down in a sketchpad: it’s thoughts, I’ll get a thought and go, “Sweet. Black and White.” We’ve done 100, so some of them are other people coming up and saying, “Hey, dude, check this out.” So I’m not going to take all the credit, a couple of the animators that I had working on them with me, they’d say, “Hey, dude, what about if . . .”
“It was a mostly spontaneous kind of thing: no rigid rules, anything and everything. I wanted to have fun and the only thing I was strict about was we hit the animation as it should be, like how I did my initial 25. This is the stuff that I like and I’m concerned about in animation: always wanted to keep it tight and clean and end them oddly . . .”
How has Black and White evolved from your original vision? Has it changed much?
“No. It’s Black and White. The only thing that I was talking with a buddy of mine about doing a feature film: a 90-minute Black and White. Full-on action, love, comedy, and it would be insane because it would still be using Black and White convention but there’d be a lot more character development.
“So it would be a ludicrous play on a real movie, but with these useless characters, pushed in a way that it shouldn’t be pushed. We’re gonna see if we can pull it off. (laughs) Go from 18 seconds to 90 minutes!”
What sort of conventional films would you want to play with?
“The Bodyguard: Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. In that movie you have Costner, who is every man’s man and I have no clue what that even means! (laughs) He’s a ninja, he’s a bodyguard, he’s got a quick wit, he’s the lover-dude.
“The Bodyguard is the perfect B-movie. It’s so perfect in every wrong way. I love good bad, and it is beautiful bad. A Black and White movie would be like that, but throw in David and Steven in a car jumping over a canyon. (laughs) It would be so intense: I’m not going to get into The Bodyguard right now . . . but I will! (laughs)
“There’s this one scene where he’s in a cabana and he hears some noise, and it’s her singing. He’s living in this little cabana in her backyard: it’s 10’x10’ and there’s a TV in it that’s 11’x11’! It’s her, windblown and singing this song and it’s so insanely ludicrous in how it’s setting up: ‘He’s falling for her!’
"There are scenes like that that are so over the top. A Black and White movie would be all about that, but times 10."
Cool.
(laughs) "This is my brain.”
Throw pop culture in a blender and see what comes out.
“The best of the worst. I passionately like it, on a horribly superficial level. I’m paper-thin, but passionate about being paper-thin . . . like Black and White. Turn me to the side (turns so he’s in profile), there’s nothing there! (laughs)”
Aaah! Where did he go?
(Everybody laughs)
(In Part #3, Jon Izen reappears, discusses using Black and White for commercials, and how to keep a healthy work environment)
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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