To the Moon and back – Louisiana filmmaker William Joyce’s acclaimed new film and dynamic studio are ready for liftoff

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.