The Cadaver Has Come Back to Life: Interview with Jonah D. Ansell

When watching the trailer I thought the short could have been Flash animated, but at the beginning of it, you state that all of it was done with Sharpies. How was the process of making Cadaver?

Yes, the entire film was hand-drawn with Sharpie markers. We then scanned them into the computer and animated them with Adobe After Effects. This was led by the brilliant Abe Dieckman, Eric Vennemeyer and Carina Simmons.

How long did it take to animate the whole short? Did you guys first storyboard what you wanted to do or did you go from your Sharpie characters onto the animation?

We storyboarded the entire film shot by painstaking shot. Tim Hahn, our other producer (who works at Pixar by day), who is uniquely talented in that his unprecedented level creativity matches his unprecedented level of organization, helped guide us to the finish line — ensuring that our artists only drew and animated the specific angles, shots and elements that would appear on screen.

A visionary producer can be a game-changer and Tim is a visionary who helped us change the game. It took us three months (and many sleepless nights) for our lead animator Abe Dieckman to ignite the film to life.

How would you describe the visual style of the short? What are some of the artists that inspired it?

We’ve been told that the film reminds people of the style of Tim Burton, but in truth, we simply set out to tell an honest love story and simply tried to find the best way to tell it. We chose a jagged, rough hand-drawn look, because love stories too often veer into the saccharine, and we needed to find a visceral, voluptuous visual style that would enable us to tell our best story.

I think in terms of the story, it really does remind me of Tim Burton — especially considering the book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy. I’m having a harder time pin-pointing the style of animation, and I guess that’s one of the reasons I was so curious about Cadaver.

What can you tell about the limited edition picture book you had planned?

Cadaver the graphic novel is being published by Academy Chicago Publishers in February 2013 — it’s very much “Shel Silverstein meets Edgar Allan Poe” and it’s a great book for anyone who has ever had their heart broken, and for anyone who has broken a heart. You can pre-order it on Amazon.

Cadaver has been playing at film festivals, where is it going next?

We will unveil the film with the release of Cadaver the graphic novel, and anyone who buys the book will also get to view the film (online) as well!

Excellent! Can’t wait to see what others will think of the short!