John Canemaker Screening

John Canemaker’s animations were really interesting. For the first screening, Confessions of a Stardreamer was very artistic. I liked how Canemaker transforms the character into different objects. It was almost like a dream. However this piece kind of made me dizzy, good thing it was 9 minutes. The voiceover was also very diva-like and that really illustrated the actress. The second screening, The Moon and the Son was a very touching story. I liked the drawings and animations in this film. The animations defined John Canemaker as a person. It shows his personality and perspective in society. Some parts of the story were comical and I think the animation also helped with that respect.

When asked how Canemaker approached his filmmaking, he said “it just came out of the blue.” He explains that he had always wanted to do a film about his father. He had even interviewed his father, before his death, in hopes of creating a film about him. One day he had gotten a grant from Rockefeller and just decided to write a storyboard and WHAM, he had started on this project, just like that. Canemaker chooses to have real life images alongside his animations because he felt that would help with the realism in the piece. Animation always comes as unreal to people, therefore the real images help people understand that this is a true story. He decided to incorporate animation in his work because he said it was a “gut feeling,” and so he just went with it. Canemaker quotes “When you think you’ve gone far enough, go further.” He says that is one of the inspirations that helped him create most of his pieces. Some animations I remember from the film is that Canemaker had a family photo and then it turned into a animation and then he turned his dad into a rocket ship. The rocket ship represents Canemaker’s father always getting angry and it was always unexpected. Another image he had was his father being a thunderbolt and the kids were squares. The thunderbolt scares the squares and the square had a slug-like thing that protects the kids. The slug is their mother. These images personified the thoughts and emotions. They help captivate emotion and give a deeper image. These animations are visual metaphors.