Andrew D. Zimbelman’s new short Moon River takes viewers along an animated dreamscape as it follows a couple as they drift and spin through a moonlit cosmic void. The New York-based artist and filmmaker has made the short available to view online since its festival premiere at the Rhode Island Intl. Film Festival. Zimbelman, who studied experimental animation at CalArts, has worked as a director, animator and illustrator for a wide range of clients such as HBO, NBC, the United Nations, AdoptUSKids, TED-Ed, and Google to name a few. He was kind enough to answer a few questions about this new short.
Animag: Congrats on the success of your latest short. Can you tell us a bit about when you started working on Moon River and how long it took to finish?
Andrew D. Zimbelman: The earliest concept illustrations for it date back to Sept of 2019. However due to the personal nature of the film I was dragging my feet with whether I wanted to fully pursue it. Then my wife gave birth to our second daughter in Feb 2020 (on my birthday) and a month later the world shut down due to the pandemic. It was in the depths of the pandemic that I somehow felt I needed to make this film. I slowly chipped away at it in between client jobs and at night after the kids were asleep. Production mostly wrapped around May of 2021 and the film had its World Premiere at the Rhode Island International Film Festival in Aug 2021.
How many people worked on it and which animation tools did you use?
I was responsible for all of the film’s visuals; design, boards, animation, compositing, editing etc. As with much of my work the design and animation was all built using Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, and a little bit of Cinema 4D. My single other artistic collaborator was Eastward Music, specifically Josh Smoak who composed the music and sonic spaces of the film. Lastly, I had my longtime producers and dear friends Nathan Jew and Andrea Sertz Jew from FCC as Executive Producers on the project.
What was the inspiration behind the short?
The film was inspired by the classic song with the same name as well as the personal significance that song has in the 20 year journey my wife and I have traveled to get to where we are now. A journey filled with heartbreak, loss, but also love and joy. So while its origin is a very personal one, hopefully through its abstraction and symbolism others may relate to it as well. I write more about the specifics of that inspiration on the film’s website here.
Also due to the pandemic, there was definitely a reaction happening inside me to what was going on in the world around me. So I think this micro personal existence in relation to a macro world situation definitely informed the film in a lot of ways.
Can you talk about the short’s evocative music?
I knew early on that while the film was inspired by a piece of music, I didn’t want to actually use that music. I very much wanted the film to be its own thing that drew inspiration from the song. This called for creating a brand new score to accompany the film. This was a tall order since the film was inspired by a song which has been covered hundreds of times. Despite this I had a composer team in mind: Josh Smoak and Alex Admiral Collier of Eastward Music.
I had worked with Josh and Alex in the past on other commissioned films. If anyone would be up to the task of composing something for this complex, personal, and emotionally layered film I knew it would be them.
Because I brought them on board early, we had lots of time for exploration. I would send Josh clips and dailies of updated sections as they slowly came out of my studio. He would then send me back all kinds of musical explorations and sketches in response to the developing visuals. This allowed for months of musical exploration, a luxury we almost never get in the commercial world. Through this process we could narrow in on melodies he was writing in different pieces and weave a full score together from months of musical tinkering. In the end Josh made a score that far surpassed all of my hopes and expectations!
Looking back, what would you say were your biggest challenges?
As with most of my independent work the biggest challenge is often time and being careful not to burnout. Funding for independent animated shorts is hard to come by, so I use client work to finance my films to buy myself time to make them. That reality combined with the pandemic and 2 kids made for an even more challenging reality. On the other hand we couldn’t really go anywhere so I used my evenings to plug away on the film when I could manage it.
Who are your major animation influences?
They’re always changing as the industry changes and grows. However my gateway into the medium was the work of William Kentridge. His work was responsible for me pivoting to pursuing animation when I was on a fine art track in undergrad. Other key figures I’m always revisiting are Wendy Tilby/ Amanda Forbis, Caroline Leaf, and Georges Schwizgebel. Also the painter Jacob Lawrence is constantly elbowing his way into my brain.
What was the main lesson you learned from this experience?
To pace yourself, and that sleep, rest, and exercise are really important.
What do you hope audiences will take away from Moon River?
Essentially, to keep on keeping on! It’s that cliche notion that we’re all these heartbroken dreamers on our own independent journey along the river of life to that eternal sea…to use the old literary symbolism. I somehow find comfort in this when times get really hard, the fact that we’re all navigating our own unique ups and downs independently and yet we all share a similar relationship and place in the vast and long lineage of human existence.
Our time on this earth is finite…and often difficult…but also often full of wonder and joy. If anything this film for me is a reminder to cling to that wonder and joy as much as you can.
You can watch the film here:
For more info, visit https://www.moonriverfilm.com/
