John Canemaker, Oscar Winner

A brief interview by Jake Friedman. Originally published in the April 2006 issue of aNYmator Magazine

We weren’t just rooting for John’s film, The Moon and the Son, because his books taught us about Otto Messmer and Mary Blair, or because in the classroom he directly affected so many of us. When he got up on that podium, a New York independent animator, all of us were right there with him. The win hit a home run for our community and reminded people around the country that there’s some great stuff coming out of the Big Apple. And the chosen media, John’s signature paints and pencils sang a celebration of hand-drawn animation in an age where the award presenter was a CG chicken.

The Moon and the Son speaks for itself in volumes. Nonethless, I took advantage of the opportunity to ask John a few questions about the film.

JF: How long did it take to complete The Moon and the Son?

JC: The Moon and the Son was begun in August 1999 thanks to a Rockefeller Foundation residency grant in Bellagio, Italy. After a month working on the concept art at the Rockefeller villa on Lake Como, I came back to New York with a working storyboard and a first-draft script. I re-boarded, refined and re-wrote, and then created an animatic with the story sketches and voice-overs by Eli Wallach and me. My producer, Peggy Stern, came onto the project and we got some NYSCA grant funding to advance further. She also brought on David Mehlman as editor and sound designer. I brought in an NYU colleague for the music --Ron Sadoff. The team kept working on it. But I lost a year on the film from Fall 2001 through Fall 2002 because I took on the duties of Chair of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Kanbar Institute of Film & Television. It was also the 9/11year and so I was kept pretty busy at school. Somewhere along the line, HBO came in with finishing funds, John Turturro replaced me as the son's voice, I got the animation completed and colored and shot (by Gary Becker's 35 mm camera) and the film premiered on January 5, 2005 as part of the "Premieres" film series for the reopening of MoMA.