Sean Ono Lennon, son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, still dreams about the traumatic process of making the Oscar-nominated animated short The War Is Over!, inspired by a song written by his parents.
“I went through a very traumatic experience during the trial,” the son of the famous Beatle said at a screening of the film in Los Angeles. Lennon conceived the short film with Pixar veteran Dave Mullins and producer Brad Booker, with support from Peter Jackson.
“When I saw the first images, I thought, ‘Oh no, this is a nightmare,'” Sean Ono Lennon said. “I still dream about it,” he continued, explaining that the images looked grotesque due to the different motion capture and animation process used.
“I thought I had fooled everyone and made a mistake. I thought maybe they lied to me,” he said. “It was very dramatic.”
The artist began with the desire to make a video for the song “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”, which John Lennon and Yoko Ono released on Christmas Day 1971, two months after “Imagine”.
The project became a short cartoon starring Dave Mullins and Brad Booker, co-founders of the new animation studio ElectroLeague. Sean Ono Lennon had just worked with director Peter Jackson on the Beatles documentary Get Back and convinced him to work on War is Over!
“He wanted to help, and the truth is we couldn’t have done it without him,” said Lennon, who wanted to create something that celebrated the cultural impact of “Happy Xmas (War is Over).”
The story centers on a chess match on a battlefield, inspired by John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s passion for the game.
“Chess is a universal language,” said Sean Ono Lennon, noting that his mother created the famous piece of art “Play for Trust,” which consists of a white board with all white pieces.
“The idea is that you can’t fight if you consider others your equal.”
Since the action was recorded for Avatar at James Cameron’s studio, the short film played out much differently than usual because Electroleague wanted the designers to focus on the essentials rather than doing time-consuming work.
Motion capture and the use of a virtual camera before the designers’ work made the first version look grotesque and featureless, causing Sean Ono Lennon to fear he had messed it up.
“It wasn’t even a valley of fear, it was a kingdom of evil,” he said. “Featureless, bald, naked men throw punches,” he continued. “I thought it was going to be terrible and I ruined the song.”
Once the textures and expressions were added, the team ran into another problem: “Merry Christmas (The War Is Over)” wouldn’t fit anywhere.
“We started trying to integrate the song, but it didn’t work. It was another dark night of my soul,” said Sean Ono Lennon. “I was very upset”.
Lennon feared that the song would not be used at all, or perhaps only fit over the end credits, until a friend came up with the idea that resolved the story’s climax.
“I would say that several miracles happened and the stars aligned,” Lennon described. “And I’m not the kind of person who uses this space terminology, even though I’m John and Yoko’s son,” he joked.
Work began before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but the impact of the conflict greatly affected the minds of the creators.
“The main idea was that there is so much division in the world and so many groups who are sure they hate each other,” Dave Mullins said at the event. “If these groups could talk to each other and find a peaceful solution, they would realize that they have much more in common than they think.”
“The war is over!” is one of five films nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film at the 96th Academy Awards, which take place on March 10. The others are “Our Uniform”, “Thick Skin”, “Ninety-Five Senses” and “Letter to a Pig”.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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