Read Part 1 of Joe Strike’s interview with John Canemaker in which he talks about his early career and how he got into animation.

John Canemaker at Annecy 2005. Photo credit: Sarah Baisley.

The Teacher
John Canemaker: I kept making my own films, and one of my friends, Richard Protovin was an animator. He said, “I’m starting an animation program at NYU, why don’t you come and teach a course?” He started at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1979 and I started teaching there in 1980. There were about four courses at the time; Richard was teaching production and giving a drawing course while I was teaching history of animation. I thought maybe I could inaugurate a course, so I started one called “Action Analysis,” which is still being taught there. It covered the principles of motion, why things work on the screen and looking at films frame by frame, live action as well as animation. It’s based on the Disney courses they taught in the 1930s.

I started teaching at NYU full time in 1988 because Richard had retired. At some point I became tenured, and then I became a full professor.

Joe Strike: Now they can’t get rid of you.

JC: We kept building the program and now we have 19 different courses per semester. It’s one of the most extensive and comprehensive programs. It not only offers traditional courses like life drawing and stop motion or storyboarding, we also have a component course in 3D and 2D computer animation. I oversee it, I’m the director. I’ve hired about 10 teachers, some of them former students, a lot of them working professionals to teach these classes.

JS: These are all production courses?

JC: There’s one esthetics course — well, the esthetics are mixed into all the courses. John Culhane gives a course on the history of animation. We have very talented students. Two of mine have won the student Academy Award. Alex Woo won last year for his film Rex Steele, Nazi Smasher. Dan Kanemoto won in 1999 for A Letter from the Western Front. It’s a program that I’m really proud of. Alex is now working at Lucas Animation. We have graduates at Disney, Pixar, Blue Sky — they’re all over the place. My students keep in touch with me, and I recommend them for jobs all the time. A lot of stuff comes through my office at NYU and I’m always willing to pass it along to my students.

A bunch of live-action students take our courses too, like storyboarding. So many of the animation courses cross over. There’s a fusion of information technology that everybody needs to know. We try to make the curriculum as comprehensive as possible, because there’re just so many applications out there.

JS: Have any of those students come up and said, “I wanted to come here because of you?”

JC: Yes, that has happened, though most of them keep it to themselves. I think most of them come because of the excellence of the program.

Two of Canemaker’s students have won the student Academy Award, including Alex Woo who received the honor last year for his film Rick Steele, Nazi Smasher (above). © Alexander Woo.

The Designer
JS: Your credits list you as the designer of your films. How do you see the role of design in your films and animation in general?

JC: It’s important to have settings and characters that work well together. I try to find ways to have that happen so there’s a blend between the two. I’ve experimented in my films with a lot of different techniques. Some of my films are very eclectic in terms of going from one thing to another. What it looks like determines how it’s going to move.

JS: Do you go into it with a design scheme in mind? You want to get a certain feeling, so this is the design approach you take, or does that come out of the work as it progresses?

JC: It’s going to come out of the work and the subject matter. I’ve done a number of sponsored films dealing with serious subjects that aren’t often done in animation, such as child abuse, cancer, teen suicide or the longings of a son for his father. It seems to be an overall theme in my career. How do you show those things in animation so that it’s proper for the medium, without resorting to live action?