Josh Raskin

It took an amazing unfolding of events in the last 50 years in order to get to I Met the Walrus. Jerry Levitan had to be a passionate Beatles fan at age 14 in 1969. John Lennon had to be in Toronto. Levitan had to be balsy enough to sneak in Lennon's room and convince the rock god he should lend himself to an interview. Crazily enough, it worked and the tape deck recording was kept.

Nearly 40 years later, Levitan teamed up with writer/director/animator Josh Raskin and together they created a 5-minute animation to the interview soundtrack.

Raskin has managed to integrate a flowing and vibrant style of animation from James Braithwaite's pen illustrations to extrapolate Lennon's discourse of peace and citizen responsibility into unique visual storytelling. Couldn't imagine a better way of extending a music legend's legacy and integrating different art mediums and storytelling modes. The film subsequently played major festivals, won several awards and got nominated at the Academy Awards.

You studied new media at Ryerson. What kind of work and stylistic developments have you been through prior to I Met the Walrus?

I made my first movie when I was eight. It was a fifteen second animation about a mouth that opened and closed a few times and then ate a fly. It's been downhill since then.

How did you first hear of the recording?

Jerry found me through a mutual friend and asked me if I'd be into making a film about his story. I've been a huge Lennon fan since I fell out of my mom, so I was immediately interested, but the thought of making a feature documentary was a bit terrifying. So I suggested cutting the recording down to five minutes and animating directly to it, and for reasons I'll never quite understand, he was all for it.

How do you involve your collaborators in the decisions regarding the shape a film is taking?

A good collaboration requires two things: people who can do things better than you and a ping pong table.

In the case of 'I Met The Walrus', I discussed ideas with James (the pen illustrator) and Alex (the computer illustrator) over an alarming amount of ping pong, before writing the animation script. From there on, James and Alex would make awesome things and I would jiggle them around in the computer. Whenever we'd run into roadblocks, we'd head back to the ping pong table.

For I Met the Walrus, how did Jerry and James feed in what you had in mind?

There was a master list of things that that needed to be made, but the way those things needed to look was pretty open to interpretation. So James and Alex would retreat to their respective wizard stations and come back with things that were more lovely and horrifying than i could have possibly imagined.

Jerry gave us his absolute trust throughout the project, and really let us do our own thing... which is especially amazing considering he'd been holding this treasure so close for so long. He'd drop in every few weeks to see what we were up to and shower us with high fives and encouragement. I can't imagine a more respectful creative relationship.

Did you have Lennon fans in mind when making it?

Not really. I probably had girls in mind while making it.

The film turned out to be such a success. How much have the awards and award nominations geared attention toward the movie and what you do?

A lot. Short films generally have a pretty limited audience, so award shows help bring your work to people who aren't your roommate and your cat.

Does such success have the direct effect of making the next project easier to get funding for?

Probably. I haven't tried yet.

What are you working on right now?

I'm working on a record. It's made of other people's music bashed into tiny bits and then put back together in questionable ways.