Advent Animation 2014 – Dec 2: Christmas Day (Ace & Son)
Last advent season, Ace & Son, MCP’s tart little film Sympathy for the Fish gave us a glimpse into the ordinary happenings of the days around Christmas. With a simple, linear design in an appropriate Christmas-colored palette, Christmas Day delivers once again on the same theme.
It’s all in the details on this one: the one house with the poorly hung Christmas lights, the slumping snowman outside, the cyclical geography of McDonald’s and WalMart. Mundane, ordinary life has come to a point of seperation, and the ballad by The Handsome Family give us a sparse backstory as we watch the end of a failed relationship. That just happened to happen on Christmas Day. Because life doesn’t pay attention to the holiday calendar.
Richard O’Connor, founder of Ace & Son MPC, shares a few of his directoral thoughts:
Interesting moment, fact or point of inspiration from your production:
In the last scene of the film the man and woman stand face to face. Most films avoid showing human relationships -boy meets girls, they have a zany encounter, they wind up in bed. Holiday films almost never show these things. When you love a person, or even just know a person, it’s all of that time that films rarely show which makes a relationship. I think we’re showing one of those moments in this scene. They silently say one hundred things. It reminds of the ending to “Eyes Wide Shut”, though I don’t know if they would say the same thing that Nicole Kidman does.
I’ve loved the music of The Handsome Family since reading a review of their “Milk and Scissors” CD in a short-lived Raygun inspired magazine called Speak. After we made this film, HBO used their music as the intro to “True Detective”. I would like to take responsibility for that (though I can’t).
Most animated holiday party you’ve been to (literally or figuratively):
Not to nominate myself, but I’ve been told our parties are pretty good. Maybe this year will top them all.
What’s one thing you are looking forward to in the new year?
Keeping track of years is tough. I’m looking forward, though, to finding folks to work with who make me look forward to coming into the studio every day to make things.
Animation and Design by Kelsey Stark
Additional animation by Liesje Kraai and Taisiya Zaretskaya
#AdventAnimation is a daily showcase of holiday themed animation. If you are working on something with a touch of holiday cheer that will be released sometime between 1 December and Christmas Eve, drop me a note and I will put it into consideration.