To the Moon and back

A polymath to his creative core, Louisiana native William Joyce is an acclaimed children’s book author, a cover illustrator for the New Yorker and a filmmaker whose credits include work for a few little indie companies by the names of Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks. It is no surprise, then, that last year—when the 54-year-old launched Moonbot Studios, his own whimsical dream factory for developing apps, interactive books and animated films—he did so not with a start-up that does one thing well, but with a diverse unit of tech-savvy young storytellers who can do just about everything.

This “gumbo of creativity we’re cooking up,” as Joyce describes Moonbot, could get its first taste of Oscar gold this month with his highly-tipped new short The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. While Oscar nominations were announced after 225 went to press, we caught up with the digital animation pioneer to talk about working with Steve Jobs at Pixar, casting Wolverine as the Easter Bunny and just how nerdy a busy hive of animators can be.

I often worry that, with all of the gadgetry and multimedia available today, children now will grow up to find books incredibly nerdy, maybe even boring. But you’ve made a cutting edge animated film about them. Why?

Books—printed books—will seem cool to children because they are cool. I made Morris Lessmore as a short film, an app and a book. Each venue is exciting and interesting. A good story works whether it is done with puppets, people, animation or printed paper.

Speaking of nerdiness, I have this theory that animators, because of rapidly developing technology, are on the verge of becoming truly mainstream cool.

The line between nerdy and cool is simply a matter of individual taste. Animation has always been mainstream; it’s just that the stream is becoming much wider and easier to find a place to put the canoe.

Katrina is a big influence on your new film. Anytime someone bases art off of some form of tragedy, certain people will be cynical about the work. Did that possibility faze you?

Well, I guess there may be people who are too cynical to be reached, but I doubt it. All I can say is Katrina was a disaster that illuminated for me, and many people I know and love, everything that is sad, horrible and courageous about life. We tried to get a taste of that in our short.

Your film made the Academy’s short list of 10 under consideration for Best Animated Short, and by the time this hits newsstands, it may have an official nomination. What are your thoughts on the Oscars?

We are a bunch of lunatics who wanted to tell a story one frame at a time. The process, the endeavor, is the real reward. Awards are lovely, but they are not the goal. They are a happy tune at the end of struggle.

Tell me something cool about Moonbot, a fantastic facility. It must be fulfilling to create so much work out of your hometown.

Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, “If I wanted to find my heart’s desire, I didn’t need to go any further than my own backyard.” Well, she did, actually, but home is always really nice. Home is one of the loveliest ideas that we have.

You’ve done a lot of work for PIXAR. What was your take on Steve Jobs?

I knew him pretty well. He was a brilliant, difficult man. But seeing into the future and changing it is not a popularity contest. It’s fighting tooth and nail every day against all the odds. I admired him.

You served as a conceptual artist and designer for Toy Story. What of ideas of yours, specifically, can we see in the film?

That movie was successful because a bunch of talented regular guys and girls made a movie that pleased themselves and, coincidentally, pleased the world. It was a perfect moment in time, and I loved adding to the general groove of the endeavor.

I was hoping some of the sadistic neighbor Sid’s more bizarre “inventions” were yours.

If they were it was by osmosis, a collective remembrance of tawdry youth.

Your upcoming feature, The Rise of the Guardians, sounds like Marvel Comic’s The Avengers, only for childhood icons like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. And you’ve got a heroic all-star cast to go with it. Hugh Jackman voices the Easter Bunny. What inspired this story?

We know the origins of Spider-man, Superman and Miss Piggy. It seemed obscene that the same could not be said for the one group of people that we, as children, actually believed in.