A conversation wherein Eric & Jeffrey Leiser via e-mail speak about the art and spirituality of Imagination.

SM: The initial awakenings of the narrative sprang from a dream. Starting off simply, can you both tell me a bit about that dream and from there the development of the remainder of the story?

Eric: Not long after I returned from Prague I was lying in bed like I usually do before I fall asleep when I had this huge vision from God about the beginning of the film which played before me like I was watching a movie. The vision went up to until around the first dream in the film; I then scrambled in the dark to find paper/ pen and began storyboarding everything I just saw. The next day I was really affected by the experience and made a vow to dedicate my life to making this vision into a reality.

From there I began filling out the film which was partly a creative evolution followed by another vision about the second half. Most of the films I do come from a collection of ideas not visions. Imagination has always been a unique and blessed film.

Prior to this as I mentioned I went to Prague, Czech Republic for the first time after my first year at CalArts in experimental animation. I had Jules Engel as my mentor that year--it was the last year he was alive so i was blessed by that. He gave me a huge grant that went into funding some of Imagination. Jules really believed in his students, he had that faith in your talent.

Back to Prague though I met Jan Svankmajer and his late wife Eva Svankmajerova thanks to William Moritz at CalArts and went to a few Czech Surrealist meetings with them. Jan was talking about starting Lunacy at the time and asked me to join a found object show with the surrealists. It was so inspirational to met these master dedicated artists. It was a very impacting invigorating experience to be out there traveling to four-story marionette museums in Crudim, enchanted castles Cesky Krumlov and majestic Prague's endlessly mysterious treasures. I returned again after I graduated and began animating for Imagination while Svankmajer was finishing up on Lunacy. Jan is my favorite artist alive. I hope I can go back again soon.

SM: The working style itself, Eric, you've called 'spiritual surrealism.' I was hoping that you could define the term a bit more for me.

I also wonder in part if the term isn't redundant, if surrealism itself isn't a direct manifestation of the spiritual.

Eric: It is redundant, and I agree with you. That phrase came out of an interview in Denmark that the language barrier created. I was trying to emphasize that the spiritual events in the film are surreal. That they are approached in a surrealistic fashion in a way.

I'm interested in the true meaning of surrealism not only the surface image as just an aesthetic. I'm very affected by surrealism's presence in everyday life, and I've been recently writing a surrealist anti-novel inspired by Anton Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism.

SM: In the Director's Statement, a main theme was of elucidating the worlds of those who suffer autism, or some other condition that might impair the functioning of an individual in a socially accepted reality. The narrative notion that Anna lived with Asberger's came a bit later in the brainstorming process, but I was hoping that you could explain what this happy accident thematic departure has taught you both along the way.

Eric: Well I realized that one of the twins in my vision had this condition; she was always repeating things and going over the same motions. This led me into extensive research of these characteristics and other elements I saw.

I've learned quite a bit now about Asperger's and the Autism problem we face in our society in general now. I really feel for those effected with it; I feel we should try to realize though that people with Autism are taping into beautiful parts of their brains those without it cannot. I wanted to focus primarily on the positive aspect of the condition rather than just pitying them like some films tend to do. I have had several people with Asperger's tell me that I nailed what it was like to have the condition. One lady even had twins with Asperger's, so that blew me away. I also visited the Braille Institute on Vermont in Los Angeles several times immersing myself in that world. Currently my second job is teaching kids animation so I'm used to working at times with special needs children. It's always enlightening every time, we both gain something.

SM: The diversity of artistic techniques plays a huge role in conveying the multiple layers of the imaginative. After crafting the narrative, how did you go about identifying which techniques to use in particular sections?

Eric: Well each technique has a certain tone attached to it that was naturally conducive to each segment and made it easy. I had worked with many of them before in my previous short films so I knew where what technique would fit best within the script.

The first dream is all about the total expansive freedom the girls have in their univisions prior to detrimental family events. Creating a life size stop motion puppet and shooting with it in exotic outdoor locations through time lapse was the perfect technique for those feelings. Unfortunately, it had little to never been done before to my knowledge so it was a hard road. Carrying the puppet around the Czech Republic on trains, nature and through towns was a peculiar comedic experience. It would be like,"Oh crap, the arm fell of and is rolling down the mountain...! Oh hooray, the swiss tourist down the trail picked it up!"

The second dream was all about the girls trying to use their imaginative creations to help them solve their [reality-related] problems. I felt table top animation characters taken from my drawings would be the right fit for that.

The forest was all about creating a large environment somewhere between the girl's imaginations and the real world. That had extensive motion control camera which I absolutely love and cannot wait to work with again. It does require you to really time out your animation more so than usual though otherwise poorly constructed shots can cause even the most wonderful animations to be forfeited.

SM: Three sections immediately saturated into my consciousness, and I was hoping we could go through each in as much wonderful--and painstaking--detail as possible. The first is the initial stop-motion sequence when Sarah and Anna wander around the mountains and lake. How did you go about crafting that sequence?

Eric: In that sequence I felt we were really pushing into the unknown limits of animation. I knew attempting time lapse combined with a life size stop motion puppet walking literally through part of a day would be difficult. The problem is that at Mono Lake the winds are usually extremely high. They broke our passenger window when we were sleeping in the car one night after shooting all day, followed by me getting caught up in a whirlwind and thereafter nearly being hit by a diesel is another story altogether! Haha, many wonderful and scary stories happened while making the film; I should do a mini comic saga.

I used landscaper spikes as tie downs that I hammered into the sand along with small sandbags at times. The puppet fell down often, and we had to hold the puppet up between shots at times. We got absolutely blasted by the elements everyday we went out, all to get our petite three to four-second shots. Luckily the cloud formations were incredibly amazing, some of them lenticular clouds--my favorite--were moving along with the high winds causing the intricate shadows and bursts of light. Kodak had just given me the new Vision2 50D film stock which really has amazing depth in the shadows. This can only be seen on our up-resed digitbeta though. Hopefully the film will come out on Bluray sometime soon!

The hardest of all was shooting at the bristle cone pines. We had to hike all of our equipment out three miles uphill at 1100 feet to the remote ancient trees. The scenes with the puppet walking up to the methusalah tree meant I had to animate the puppet walking uphill and hammer the tie downs into rock. The shot that goes to black meant we had to walk back that night in the dark alongside steep cliffs at times--hardcore stuff that you look back and think you were out of your mind, and you were but nevertheless it was filled with excitement. I almost had an aneurysm from animating, but it really felt powerful to be near supposedly the oldest living land organism in the world.

(Note: I did not harm the trees eco system and was very careful around them. I'm not an official environmentalist but deeply respect/love nature)(=)

SM: As mentioned by other critics, the earthquake sequence is astounding, and while the artifice of stop motion is generally so at the surface, an attractive element about the visual medium, in those sections, it's almost difficult to identify the artistic hand at work. The entire film took two and a half years, but I'm guessing a large portion must have gone into those sections. Can you tell me a bit about producing those sequences?

Eric: Well I thought long and hard about conceptual strategies for tackling the earthquake sequence. I grew up in Santa Rosa, CA--northern California--and my first major experience of an earthquake was when my remote control car popped into the air, and my friend's pool was spilling out water during the 1989 earthquake. I have always lived with fear of the "big one" and somehow it snuck its way into the film's narrative.

I couldn't do a big Hollywood earthquake and really wouldn't have wanted too even if I had the funds. I wanted to try to capture the visceral feeling of the moment coupled with the girl's impressions of what was happening internally and externally in their lives. I started thinking about the earth cracking and tectonic plates shifting during a massive quake.

When the time came to begin the sequence, I went out with a hammer, chisel, knife, etcertera and found some earth that was already cracked a little from the rainfall, drought and other elemental factors. I kind of followed the cracks paths and began slightly chipping away while taking single frames. This also added a time lapse effect which I liked. We even tried some camera moves--which was insane. Other times I walked up into the Griffith Park hills and found parts of hill embankments that had collapsed and started chipping away, to the bewilderment of passing hikers. It happened to be the heat of summer after all, but I was totally in a trance and loving it. The rest was taking handheld single frames in the cities of San Diego, Los Angeles and San Fransico all effected by the quake and certain places I have lived in within those cities that I hold a personal connection too.

SM: The epiphany sequence of the girls walking through the forest is the last which vividly strikes my mind, and it's also the scene most metaphorically layered in Christian imagery. Can you speak a bit about the main themes and challenges of that segment?

Eric: I spent the most time on the forest segments, and I feel the real power of the film resides within that section.

There is so much there that has Christian imagery. When the girl's escape they are kind of dying to themselves to follow God's plan for them; the girls finding their mother's casket empty is symbolic of Christ's Resurrection and triumph over death; the Nephilim--an offspring of a fallen angel spoken of the Old Testament--represents present death which is separating the girls from their mother.

The girls being in their imaginations can move past this to be with their mother in heaven even if it is only in their imaginations. The albino fawn, also seen as the white stag, represents Christ--medieval Christian symbol--leading them through the whole film, which is really a vision of their lives that they are given in their mother's womb soon before they are born. That goes into explaining the ending on why they disappear and their imaginative bodies are left behind.

I know this film is weird, even to me, but still all the more wonderful!

SM: In an interview with Hollywoodjesus.com journalist Ken Priebe, you mentioned: "With my work, although my personal relationship with Christ informs things, I don't really want to make "Christian film" necessarily..." I really appreciate the statement, and it made me question a few different things: First, How do you define 'Christian film' for yourself? Does this mean inclusively that Christian morality, Christian imagery or perhaps just the life of Christ can be explored?

Eric: No, it's just being a "Christian film" can be restrained to a whole genre with certain preconceived ideas attached to it. One of my all time favorite filmmakers is Robert Bresson. Are Au Hazard Balthazar or Diary of a Country Priest Christian films?--definatley Christian at their core.

I was more using the example of how Imagination might shock someone buying it in a Christian book store because it approaches Christian subject matter in such a radically different way than they might have experienced before. I think if that redefined a Christian film for them then I'm excited. It falls right along with what kind of films I hope to make in the future. In my interview I was rather focusing on the limitation labeling can impose on a work. I really want everyone to enjoy the film and view the Christian message in a fresh way. It can only lead to one place, and that's the Bible which I truly believe. The film can be enjoyed on many levels.

SM: In terms of the live action sequences, how did you go about casting and then directing Nikki and Jesse Haddad?

Eric: The casting happened so early on, and I was so inexperienced in this area that in retrospect I wish I had taken a little more time--with the exception of the twins.

Right when they walked in it was just uncanny, and I started smiling. They came with their mother who had the same crazy thick long red hair, no mistaking it was their mom. They were talking in sync at times and finishing each other's sentences; the twin energy was there before which I loved. I wanted the film to have that energy and reflect what Jeff and I share as brothers. The girls possessed something very special in them at that time in their lives, as they do today. They were so intelligent and thoughtful. I wish I did more scenes with them and developed their relationship with their mother more. By the time I wanted to re-shoot they had already started puberty!

SM: In the editing process, how did you go about this back and forth between the live action and animated sections? What were the challenges inherent in that process?

Eric: The editing was a very intuitive process even though I had a clear structure in mind. I tried to work sequentially focused on the transitions between the live action and animated segments. The animation was always meant to outshine the live action, illuminating the girls so involved and alive in their imaginations.

SM: Jeffrey, the score is gorgeous, mystical and somehow, even despite the sadness of the story, ever serene. At times I know you write to the animation, and at times the music guides the animation. Working with that creative split, what scoring themes were you looking for in the work?

Jeffrey: I am always in my music trying to reach a place untouched by time, beautiful, clear and heaven-like. Music is where my deep thoughts and feelings are translated to reality in a direct way, a way which works with Eric's visual language to produce a brotherly conversation to God. We don't pretend to live in a candy-filled world and events happen which make us upset at God, but it isn't God's fault at all - in fact, He is the one I credit as the source of all my music, and the one whom I must also credit for the serenity in my work. If you know me, I can be an anxious person, but there is a true peace, a real hope I receive from the Lord which guides me through a sometimes dismal world.

SM: Did you pull musical influences from anywhere?

Jeffrey: No I do not. I don't actively listen to music because it clouds my ability to express my "inner voice", which is really the Holy Spirit speaking with groans I cannot express with words.

SM: How too did your experience abroad affect the scoring?

Jeffrey: Living in Prague for a good portion of 2005 changed me. I don't think I would have left if the film I worked on over there did not fold before production began. I fell in love with the city and European life. It's better over there. But I did less music. That was initially because I fried two transformers!--to use my western electronics--and my keyboard got damaged on the plane flight over. But I had this Czech mechanical genius fix it for me. I don't know about scoring; it was more of a period to internalize another culture and another world. I think it was more subconsciously inspiring to be with Eric going to all those 16th century castles-- with a life size stop motion puppet doll no less! I wish someone would have documented it --bringing the girl on trains to remote Czech locations; hiking with it and its limbs or head falling off randomly. We became something of a legend over there-- people were taking pictures, filming, marveling. I'm sure they'll tell that story for years to come. But the funniest part was when an entire Czech police force came onto the train in Prague. They didn't know what to make of the girl. I'm glad we didn't get arrested!

SM: As children, you've intimated in other interviews, there was a certain outsiderness you mutually felt based upon your own creative worlds. To get a picture of these worlds, if you were to recreate a scene of childhood in the same manner the doctor does in the film, how would that scene play out?

Jeffrey: Let's say it's the ninth grade. I get bullied at school. I sit alone in the cafeteria. I go home and record music for 3-4 hours straight on my keyboard, or until the nutrients in my body are drained. Then I eat some food, some dessert, go for a walk with my dog Buddy in the park at night, swing on the swing set, sing, and think about what it would be like to let go of the swing and fly to the moon. Then Eric would come into my room and listen to my recording, with nothing with a blue light-bulb to light the room, which I usually recorded to.

SM: Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Jeffrey: Imagination is a special film. I feel I can say that even though I worked on it with Eric. I still got to experience Eric's vision as an outsider at first. It's not a film where you can form a quick opinion about it and move on. It isn't the latest trendy PT Anderson or Wes Anderson film where it's over-the-top and all about the actor's performance. It's a personal response to God, to our love and friendship as brothers, to our view of the outside world, and it's also about our understanding of life both before birth and after death. It's about the concept, the poetry, the expression of the inner world. That's how I feel. It's not entertainment. And it isn't filtered for easy ingestion. Film has the potential to portray, to convey so much more. Watch an Andrei Tarkovsky film like Stalker or The Mirror and you will never see a movie the same way.

Maybe our work won't be understood in our lifetime, but it's a joy to be on this journey, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Imagination releases on DVD tomorrow. Visit www.albinofawn.com for more information.