Dec 6, 2024

Oscar short film candidates for 2025: – Almost a Christmas story - Director David Lowery

Cartoon Brew is putting the spotlight on an animated short film nominated for an Academy Award in 2025.

This article looks at Christmas stories from the Walt Disney Company and director David Lowery. The short story won the qualification of the Academy Award through a theatrical exhibition.

Narrated by John C. Riley, the nearly Christmas story tells the story of Moon, a curious young owl trapped in a Christmas tree heading to Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. Trying to escape the city, Moon makes friends with a lost girl named Luna. Together, they embark on an adventure written by BAFTA winner Jack Thorne and helmed by Green Knight director David Lowry. The film is a co-production of Alfonso Cuarón's Esperanto film, Titmouse, and Maere Studios.

Cartoon Brew: Growing up on Christmas animated classics, How did you feel that you brought your own holiday stories to the screen, and how those stories and movies were your step I think this is a reminder for a young audience as Rudolph and the Grinch and Charlie Brown's Christmas special did for me. I really wanted to incorporate my own perspective on the holiday into the story, but when I interrogated that perspective, the crux of it was the movies, especially those animations

Charlie Brown Special [Charlie Brown Christmas], which I came back with. Something about Vince Guarardi's music really stuck with me, and when I think about Christmas, it's usually accompanied by melancholy piano music that evokes so much sadness and happiness at the same time. Those feelings are what I almost tried to capture in the Christmas story, and some of the aspects that make the film very personal to me.

What made you connect with you and force you to direct a film about this story or concept-

I love New York at Christmas. That was the first hook. I wasn't growing up in Manhattan, so most of my childhood exposure to the city was in the classic Christmas movies from Miracle on 34Th Street to Home Alone2. I was excited to contribute something to that Canon. I also loved that the script written by Alfonso [Cuarón] and Jack [Thorne] used this true story as a jumping-off point for a story of unexpected connection and compassion.

What did you learn through the experience of making this film, production wise, filmmaking wise, creatively, or on the subject -

I learned how to make an animated film - or at least, I scratched the surface of learning how to make an animated film. It was a big learning curve for me. Originally it was live-action, but gradually we began to introduce elements of animation. Later in the game, I realized that the best version of what I wanted to achieve existed in a fully animated format and made a hard pivot to full cg, and now I'm hooked on it. I want to continue working in this medium and explore different types of animation. It really allowed me to indulge my perfectionist streak and it also gave me the opportunity to work with and learn from some really great artists.

Can you explain how you developed a visual approach to cinema - why did you settle for this style/technique-

My first instruction was to make New York City out of cardboard. I always loved making things out of cardboard – all the movies I made as a child were full of cardboard sets, cardboard spaceships, cardboard everything and it was a conduit for my imagination as a child, and soon I realized that I wasn't going to shoot a movie in New York. I decided that it was the material of the project. It then informed all the other aesthetics. Everything harken back to works of art and craft needed to have a very specific quality. I wanted the main human character to look like papier-mâché.

Nicholas Ashe Bateman from Maker Studios was the creative designer of the film, and he took my ideas and ran with them and made them beautiful. He and his team built everything, set fire to the shots, set the camera and equipped all the characters. Then a crew of 88Pictures animators brought the characters to life and really embraced the more rougher style we were aiming for. I wanted something that felt like a blend of two, synthesizing what I love about both stop motion and cg animation.