I sit in my air conditioned office, with a view of the Hollywood sign, of which I can only read "wood," as it is partially blocked by a Scientology sign, and I contemplate the strange fate that brought me here. I am working on a Hollywood movie! What do my short minimalist poems have to do with these novellas, which entice all your senses? But perhaps these two worlds are not that different. When people in Europe snub their noses at Hollywood movies, they forget they have picked the subjects here, which are neither funny or glamorous, nor are they heroic epics. There were films made about autistic and handicapped people, about rape and loss of work--and all managed to be successful movies. Also, in animated films we see a different approach to a traditional medium.

Got Milk commercial, directed by Raimund Krumme. Courtesy of Acme Filmworks.

Something New
For the past few months, working on the feature version of Harold and the Purple Crayon, I have gotten to know a cartoon figure who experiences his world, his dreams and fears through his art. He is perplexed by the fact that his simple drawings, sometimes turn out to be more complex than he expected; and the same drawings, looked at from another angle or dimension, are transformed into something new, with different dimensions in another spatial order. Many ideas develop from within the flow of the drawings themselves, a process I am very familiar with.

From this point of view, moving from independent short films to this production was not that big a deal. Harold uses his crayon to understand the world around him. Because a simple line-drawing allows diverse interpretations, he makes many new discoveries, and eventually sees himself as being trapped.. It takes another line to change the situation and to free himself.

I work a little like Harold when I work on a film. Besides having a plot, there is not much written. Things evolve by drawing them. This is where my ideas come from. The simplicity of the drawing lets you concentrate on movement. Because my drawings sometimes only gain meaning through motion, it is possible to change content by adding a new movement. Even an abstract line or geometric form can be changed emotionally by a poetic action, because we recognize certain patterns of motion in our everyday life. It might be this verfrendung (strange point of view) of the well-known pattern, that finds easier access to the heart.