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Your movie The
Magic of Santa Claus - in a few words, what's it about?
The
Magic of Santa Claus is a film about the iconic figure receiving
heartbreaking news on Christmas Eve that he only has a day or so left to
live. Instead of feeling sorry for himself in his final moments, Santa
passionately continues with his mission of bringing joy to the world by
traveling across the planet and giving gifts to children. One of the goals
when making the film was to effectively show someone caring more about
other people than he does about himself. Despite the tragic circumstances,
the film isn’t meant to be sad as what Santa stands for (kindness,
empathy, compassion etc.) lives on through his legacy and his helpers.
What were your sources of inspiration when writing The
Magic of Santa Claus? In terms of writing The
Magic of Santa Claus, I’d say the biggest inspiration was probably the 1982 animated short film The Snowman,
which is also a sad story in the sense that the Snowman melts at the end,
but it’s also an uplifting tale of friendship and adventure. I would say
the 2020 animated short film The Legend
of Santa which I directed
was also an inspiration when I was writing the screenplay. Other
inspirations include The Snowman and the Snowdog (a sequel to The
Snowman), The Polar Express and Christmas music in general. You've previously tackled
the character The Legend
of Santa - so what made you come back to Santa
Claus, and are the two films in any way related? Other
than myself being involved, the two films aren’t related in any way
(different production companies, different personnel, different stories
etc.). In terms of coming back to Santa
Claus, I would say the reason I
came back is simply that I love Santa
and the Christmas genre. I’m
always keen to come back to this world given the opportunity and thought
this would be an impactful story to tell. Even as a fan of different film
genres, I love Christmas movies. I grew up on films like the
aforementioned The Snowman, the original Miracle on 34th
Street and The Polar Express that I always long to be a part of
Christmas films and was very grateful that I had another opportunity with The
Magic of Santa Claus. Basic
question, why did you choose the claymation process for The
Magic of Santa Claus? Since
having such a good experience directing the 2020 animated short The Legend
of Santa, I’ve longed to come back to tell another Santa
Claus story through the world of animation. I connected with the very talented
claymation artist C. Diamant at the start of the year, and after seeing how
passionate she is about what she does, I decided to choose the claymation
process and work with her to tell this story. I love claymation as well
(am a big fan of the likes of Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the
Sheep) and I also thought directing a claymation film would be a good
test for me as a director.
What can you tell us about
The Magic of Santa
Claus's character designer and animator C. Diamant, and what was
your collaboration like? C.
Diamant is also the founder of Key to Clay Studios
which is also one of two production companies involved with the film (the other is my own
Sacred Ember Films). She designed the characters and animated the film and
is a very talented, hard working and passionate professional. I think
it’s evident in the quality of the movie, but she worked incredibly hard
on the film. Although she and her slaymation studio are based in New York
whereas I'm based in California, our collaboration was great and
effective. We essentially worked together through calls, emails and texts.
I also did hand drawn storyboards for each shot in the film so she could
see my vision. What can you tell us about your
directorial approach to your story at hand?
Directing the film came down to several different processes but I think the biggest
one was probably relaying my vision from start to end to our character
designer and animator C. Diamant as well as our composer Elezeid, as they
were in charge of the teams behind the visuals and music, respectively. I
believe attention to detail goes into making a great film so I did my best
to convey my vision to them when the project started as well as throughout
the making of it.
There were other things I did as director like overseeing the edit (cutting a
shot here or there and shortening/lengthening scenes) but it was crucial
to make sure the vision of the film was strong from the very start all the
way to the end. For example, C. Diamant and I spent quite a long time on
the character designs themselves in terms of making sure we had the right
look for the characters before we started filming. For example, I believe
I wanted a change where I wanted Santa’s eyes to be smaller. It was
crucial that Santa (along with the elves) looked very empathetic and
compassionate throughout the film. I also sent her lots of inspirational
images from Christmas films and idyllic winter scenery in general.
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The same applied to Elezeid and the soundtrack. He and I would have Zoom calls
where we’d go over each scene and discuss the music I would like. After
he came up with a musical draft for a scene, I would listen several times,
then I would write down a list of notes for him to make adjustments.
How does
directing a claymation movie compare to directing actors on set, and based
on your experience on The
Magic of Santa Claus, could you ever be persuaded to do another
claymation film? Directing claymation (for this project as I don’t have another to compare it to)
was probably less stressful in one key sense. Because I was working with a
studio (Key to Clay Studios in this case) over the course of several
months, there wasn’t as much pressure in terms of “we only have two
hours to shoot this scene etc.”, which is typical of live action shoots
where you have actors, locations etc. booked for a certain amount of days.
I would love to come back and do another claymation film (more on this
later in the interview in terms of another project C. Diamant and I are
trying to launch). A few words about the shoot as such,
and the on-set atmosphere? The
shoot was very fun and it was essentially taking hundreds of photos and
then editing them together in editing software and in post-production. The
shoot was very different to a live action shoot as you essentially create
a set (which took a long time as well), have the characters do their
actions, film them etc. The on-set atmosphere was awesome and just an
overall really enjoyable project to be a part of. You of course also have to
talk about the music of The
Magic of Santa Claus, and how much of a say did you have or demand
regarding the score?
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I
appreciate you bringing up the score as I’m a big fan of it. It was
composed and scored by Elezeid who also did the original soundtrack for my
(now critically acclaimed) horror-thriller feature film The Seductress from Hell. He’s a very talented composer and he and I had several
Zoom calls not only discussing the inspirations for the soundtrack (Howard
Blake’s soundtrack of The Snowman perhaps being the biggest one)
but also going over each scene to talk about what sort of music each scene
required. There is so much possibility when it comes to music that it was
important to make sure each scene had the right music. Luckily Elezeid and
I have been working together for almost 10 years so we understand each
other well when it comes to what we want to bring to soundtracks in films.
His grandfather was a professional Santa Claus, so he was very invested in
the film on an emotional level as well. The $64-question of course, when
and where can The
Magic of Santa Claus be seen? As
we just finished post-production barely a couple of weeks ago, we’ve
started trying to have the film screen at film festivals, so it is
currently not streaming or playing anywhere. We are hoping to release the
film sometime next year after the festival circuit whether through a short
film distributor or ourselves! Anything you can
tell us about audience and critical reception of The
Magic of Santa Claus? In addition to your review
(which we're grateful for), we just got a 5 stars out of 5 review from
film critic Kirk Fernwood of One Film Fan where he called the film
"a triumph". Also, the film was screened for some audiences and
the people that have watched it have really liked the film. Any future projects you'd
like to share? C. Diamant and I are trying to fundraise and launch a feature film version of
The
Magic of Santa Claus which expands on the story seen in this
film and also beyond in terms of showing how Saint Nicholas became Santa
Claus through his mission of bringing happiness to children around the
world. I’m also trying to fundraise and launch a couple of horror films.
One is a sequel to The Seductress from Hell and the other is a
horror screenplay called The Tormentor which is about a psychopathic
CEO and his wife who invite some of his employees over for a twisted
dinner party.
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Your/your movie's website, social media,
whatever else?
We haven’t launched our website yet but our Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/themagicofsantaclausfilm
My Instagram is: https://www.instagram.com/andrewdeburghdirector/
Key to Clay Studios:
https://www.instagram.com/keytoclay/
Elezeid: https://www.instagram.com/elezeidofficial/
Anything else you're dying to mention and
I have merely forgotten to ask? Not really, I appreciate the thoughtful questions. Thanks for the
interview! Thank you so much, I appreciate it!
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