Jon Izen on Black and White - Interview
March Entertainment Micro-Shorts at Toronto Short Film Festival
Jun 25, 2009
What happens when a critic savages your animated show? If you're Jon Izen, you respond with a bizarre series of micro-shorts about nothing at all. Cue Black and White, an oddly addictive set of shorts featuring a couple of talking tiles.
In Part #2 of this exclusive interview, Jon talked about Pop Art and his love of the Kevin Costner schlockfest The Bodyguard. Now, the animator discusses Black and White's future in advertising, and how keeps animation from becoming work.
S101: Has there been a point in Black and White where you’ve felt yourself get off-track, and how did you get back on?
Jon: “The only challenge has been: we’re doing some advertising with the characters. We’re working with Mondo Media, a distributor in the States. Once you start dealing with more folks – dealing with Mondo’s been great, they’re really creative – we have to make sure that it comes back to me, that I have to be comfortable with it.”
What would be your comfort level in using Black and White for advertising?
“On hundred percent comfortable. David and Steven are a shell for anything you want to say at any time. They go from A through Z. They exist to be knocked around and had fun with. If you put them in a suit and tie for an ad, it would be hilarious. If you kept them as they were, it would be hilarious. If you made it so forced that it was horrible, it would be hilarious.
“It’s like The Bodyguard. Some people thought it was good, others thought it was horrible but it served a purpose for what it is. Black and White is about having fun.”
How much of Black and White is a collaborative process now?
“It’s still me.”
But you mentioned how animators come in with ideas–
“Yeah, but I sketch on paper what I might want these guys to do. In one short, the other animators, instead of making an animation where a monster’s foot stepped on David, they took the Post-It note, scanned it in and used it the ripped Post-It note in the animation as opposed to redrawing it (laughs) for the final short. So there’s a scrap of paper that comes in the shot. And these guys know me, and they knew I’d laugh.
“I’m totally open to other people’s ideas, as long as I’m really comfortable with it. So, when I’m working with my two buds, Chris Cherkis and Graham Finlay – great animators, had a howl working with them. They were the key animators on the last 75, I was the director and creator. As long as it feels good, yeah let’s try it."
Have you been asked for more?
“Right now we’re holding at the 100. Just getting them out there and seeing what happens.”
Where would you like them to go? On YTV, or wherever?
“I’m not sure, I think March Entertainment – who I work for – has been approached. These days, everything is crazy economically with all this crap that’s going on, but they’re streaming at – in all places – Pizza Pizza, on the closed circuit cable that they have on there. Every 8 minutes, they screen a Black and White short.
“We’re being distributed on Mondo Media out of San Francisco. They have a YouTube channel, which is one of the most-viewed channels on YouTube. I didn’t mention that in the Shorts for Shorties screening, because YouTube is a nasty place. There’s no censor for the comments area, so I don’t want kids going there! (laughs)”
What is it about animating for kids that you enjoy?
“I love nothing more than (a) being able to make kids laugh, and (b) doing a workshop and try and help kids learn that they can do this whenever they want: they don’t have to be serious, they don’t have to follow a straight path. If I can do that, it’s the best. That’s my craft, that’s what I love to do, but teaching kids is the best: number one.”
Other than Black and White, what are you working on right now?
“I’m in pre-production on a series that’ll air on Children's BBC, called Pet Squad. We’re in a co-production with Studio Darryl MacQueen in London. I’ll be the director and I did the key design for the characters. I’m just coming off a series called Dex Hamilton: I think this one will air on CBC sometime next year.
“I just had an art show at Magic Pony on Queen Street last month. When I get those opportunities, I still love to create artwork.”
What do art gallery showings give you?
“Purity of drawing. That’s it. Freedom of expression and material, and I worry less about process than when I’m doing animation which is more of a process.”
Do you find constraints a welcome part of your creativity? Do you get option anxiety when you don’t have those limitations on you? Or do you welcome the chance to break loose?
“No. No matter what I’m doing, even if it’s a production with 80 people, I still always find those ways to enjoy myself so I always feel happy. I don’t like work to be work.”
How do you maintain that?
“Sometimes it’s very difficult. But, in a big production: have those gags, treat stuff as though it’s your own and I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I can invest my sensibilities in projects. If it can feel a little bit your own, you can work naturally.
“The show might not end up exactly how you wanted it to, but if people enjoy themselves, the energy they put into it is still going to make it better. Cartoons should be about having fun, and you see what happens when you finish at the end.”
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