Jimmy, in front of the Ernest Pintoff Studio in New York while working with UPA, 1957. All personal photos from Jimmy T. Murakami's private collection.

In Giannalberto Bendazzi's book Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation, he aptly describes Jimmy Teru Murakami as a 'globe trotter of animation.' Over the last five decades, he's worked in California, New York, Japan, France, Italy, the Netherlands, England and Ireland. His colleagues include Ernest Pintoff, George Dunning, Richard Williams and James Cameron. Murakami's short films have been acclaimed round the world, while he made his feature directing debut with When the Wind Blows (1985). At present, he has just recently finished a new feature version of A Christmas Carol. Andrew Osmond caught up with Murakami at London's Illuminated Films -- the venue for the Carol feature -- to talk about animation past and present.

Andrew Osmond: During World War II, when you were only seven, you and your family were among the thousands of Japanese people interned at Tule Lake in North California. [Tule Lake is a dry lake near the Oregon border.] Obviously, this must have had a profound impact on you. How did it affect your outlook?

Family photo taken in San Jose, California in the 1930s. (l-r; back row:) Jimmy's parents, Testujiru and Shizue Murakami; (middle row) Teru (Jimmy), Jun and Sumiko (with dog); (front row) Yuriko.	The Murakami family during incarceration at Tule Lake Camp, California during WWII in the 1940s. (l-r, front row:) Jun, Yuriko and Teru (Jimmy); (middle row:) Shizue and Sumiko, who died 2 days after this photograph was taken, and Testujiro; (back row:) Mitsuo Murakami, Jimmy's uncle.

Jimmy Murakami: Mainly, I was very, very bitter, to be an American citizen treated this way. My older sister died in the camp and the rest of us came out pretty bad. We had planned to go to Japan, but my mother (a second generation Japanese-American) and my father (first generation) decided to stay after Japan's defeat. My father heard from his sister that the Japanese house had been bombed and people were living outdoors... But we didn't want to go back to San Jose, we had lost our farm, so my father contacted a friend in Los Angeles who had come out of another camp. He invited us over. My mother cancelled our boat trip, went to the War Office and begged them to get us on the train to L.A. It wasn't an easy journey but we got there in the end.

AO: You went to Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, which later merged with the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to become CalArts.

JM: Chouinard was an incredible place. It was a 'fine arts' school and I was training to be a fine artist. I was on a so-called working scholarship. Mrs. Chouinard, a grand lady, had followed my career from high school when I had 'Saturday scholarships' and she said, "You must become an artist." I told her I wanted to become a doctor, a brain-surgeon, and went to college for six months. But then I thought more about being an artist. I left college and called Mrs. Chouinard and she gave me a scholarship for three and a half years.