Back to selection
“It’s Reflecting the Times but Arriving Warped”: Director Dash Shaw | Cryptozoo
Cryptozoo How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it?
Animation takes a long time. Cryptozoo was written and storyboarded when Obama was president. The first voice recordings were done in the early months of the Trump presidency. The final pick-up voice recordings were recorded remotely due to the pandemic. Now it premieres under Biden. During all of those years, we worked on this every day. The plan never changed, but of course everything (from painting a background, or recording a voice) happens in its own present moment. Ultimately, movies are a dream transmitted from the consciousness of the culture and time in which it was made. It’s reflecting the times but arriving warped. Coronavirus dreams are especially vivid and bizarre. The beholder’s share completes the picture in their own time.
(Check back daily during the festival — new answers are uploaded on the day of each film’s premiere. Read all the responses here.)
