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r Shorts
Don Hertzfeldt
The World According to Don Hertzfeldt The brilliant indie animator discusses the latest chapter of his mind-bending World of Tomorrow trilogy.
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he name Don Hertzfeldt brings to mind some of the most clever and original indie shorts of the past two decades. Ever since the California native burst on the scene with his student shorts Lily and Jim (1997) and Billy’s Balloon (1998), he has continued to move forward with each hilarious, brilliant and profoundly moving work. The Oscar-nominated 2000 short Rejected (2000), the Sundance fave The Meaning of Life (2005), his acclaimed Bill trilogy (Everything Will Be OK, I’m So Proud of You and It’s Such a Beautiful Day) and the Oscar-nominated and Annie-winning World of Tomorrow (2015) often pop up on ‘Best of’ lists. Last year, Hertzfeldt introduced the third part of his sci-fi epic, The Absent Destinations of David Prime, on Vimeo. Hertzfeldt was kind enough to answer a few of our questions recently:
Congrats on the recent success of the third part of World of Tomorrow. Can you tell us a little bit about your process on this latest chapter? Don Hertzfeldt: “Episode Three” took about two years to make. It was produced at home in Austin like the other ones, so dates and budgets get sort of loose and untracked over here. Other than my cast, Julia and Jack, the only other person involved with the production this time was my girlfriend Taylor, who lent a hand in lighting and compositing the more complicated visual effects shots. Everything else, from writing to editing to sound to design to animation to direction, it’s all just me. And let’s be honest, maybe that’s getting a little ridiculous. I find I’m starting to get really jealous of people who work in live action and are able to churn out multiple projects in a year and still www.animationmagazine.net
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have time to sit on a beach. I’ve been having conversations with a bunch of streaming places in the hope of finding a more permanent home, with actual budgets for getting more help in the room here. I’m perfectly capable of continuing to work this way if I have to, the money is fine, it’s just the time, the time, the time. I’m still hand-coloring every frame by hand with the paint bucket tool and thinking, “Maybe I’m a little overqualified for this!” What were some of the more difficult aspects of diving back into this complicated futuristic universe? The movie takes place before, during, and after the events of the first two episodes — spanning hundreds of years — so the script was super tricky to get right. It’s a weird animal, operating as both a prequel and a sequel, which was a fun thing to try and figure out, but
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daunting. My notes were full of mad diagrams and exclamation points and arrows. And I was very conscious of the fact that when you go back and start messing with past storylines, especially with something as beloved as the first World of Tomorrow, if you screw it all up, not only do you make a bad movie but you wreck those previous episodes for everyone, too. So, I was constantly refining the details of these timelines in order to not leave open any big dumb plot holes, or make anything feel like an emotional cheat. The intertwining plots of Episode Three turn into this big farce, which is part of the fun, and I certainly didn’t expect everyone to understand every nuance of all the time travel by the end of it. It’s OK to be confused, these movies go way over the top — my job was making sure people don’t give up or check out along the way. The hope is that even if you’re a bit lost, you’re still right there with me emomarch 21
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