The Adventures of Indiana Jones: Patrick Schoenmaker Interview
There’s something about the Indiana Jones universe that seems like a perfect fit for animation. Sadly, while sister franchise Star Wars has had plenty of animated series across the decades, Indy has had to make do with just the films and some expanded universe literature.
Gladly, animator and character designer Patrick Schoenmaker decided to change that. After designing art pieces for Lucasfilm and ACME Archives that presented Indy in stylised cartoon format, Schoenmaker has created a short showreel (which will be available online from September 29th) that turns those still images into gloriously kinetic animation.
I’ve been lucky enough to see it, and it’s a wonderful piece of work. Schoenmaker captures the nostalgic, romanticised world of Indy perfectly, and free from the constraints of live action, our adventuring hero seems more adventurous than ever before. There’s a thrilling freedom to the movement here that shows exactly why animation is such a natural fit for the world of Indiana Jones.
Here, Patrick talks to From Director Steven Spielberg about his work and his love for the character.
First of all, could you tell us a little something about you and your work?
I am an animator and character designer from Utrecht, the Netherlands. After graduating the Utrecht School of the Arts I joined a group of fellow alumni from the same art school and together we formed an animators’ collective called Frame Order. I mostly do art direction and design, but I also do storyboards and direction from time to time. I also work for toy companies now and then.
Prior to starting The Adventures of Indiana Jones you created some cartoon-style Indy prints in partnership with Lucasfilm and ACME Archives. How did they come about?
The actual seed for this was planted way back in 2004 I think, when I was a member of the message boards for one of my favorite artists at that time, J. Scott Campbell. He was personally involved in that community and ran monthly drawing jams. He is also a big fan of the Indiana Jones movies and one time he proposed Indy as the subject of that month’s drawing jam. I submitted a pretty crude drawing of Indy, but it caught the attention of one of the people behind theraider.net, one of the largest Indiana Jones fansites. They approached me to do some illustrations for their site.
Once the development of Crystal Skull was set in motion, Acme Archives got the rights to produce some Indiana Jones themed art prints and must have stumbled across my art on theraider.net, so they commissioned me to do a print for them. I also did some art for Topps trading cards around the same time. As an illustrator from the Netherlands, far removed from all the big studios and artists I admired in the US, these were really exciting times!
The reaction to those prints was huge. How did it feel to get such a positive response and at what point did the positive response turn into a desire to put together this animation?
I’ve always had an interest or an eye for the translation of popular properties into different mediums. It may sound weird, but I was intrigued by the process of translating Disney characters into fast food toys for instance. Or comparing the comic book versions of animated features to the original thing. What were the choices that were made, why were the colors different, or why did they change the style or tone of voice entirely? It made me realise that many of these differences were born out of restrictions, but I’ve always felt that you owe it to the people who love these properties, to really understand what it is that makes them love these things and try to transport those to any other medium you plan to release as good as you can, be it comics, tv shows, toys or pyjama trousers. Even though not everybody can put it into words exactly, people feel when you got it right.
Being a huge fan of Indiana Jones myself, I thought it would be a good challenge to imagine an animated version of Indiana Jones that would appeal to fans of the movies, both old and young and also still be practicable as an actual tv series (that’s the animator in me speaking). When the fan reaction was positive, that felt really satisfying of course. But the desire to turn it into an animation didn’t have much to do with that actually. After the release of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, without any plans for new movies in the near future, I just felt like setting up an Indiana Jones project of my own, to keep my love for the character going a little longer.
Talk us through the process of creating the animation. How did you go about developing the idea, building your team, and bringing everything to life?
From the start it was clear to me that the project had to be manageable, it shouldn’t be too long and I didn’t want to be dependent on other artists. So I decided to turn it into the intro to the actual imaginary tv series. My plan was to work on it whenever I didn’t have any freelance work going or just felt like taking a couple off weeks of an flex my muscles a bit. At first I tried to make it one little action sequence that took place in a collapsed temple, but I felt it needed more locations and travelling. So I found another way of constructing it that worked better for me.
Once I had the basic idea I just spent days, probably even weeks, storyboarding, trying out ideas and locations. I wanted to see how many of the fan favorite characters I could fit in, but I had to cut out a couple to stay within the 1 minute time frame I had set for myself. Eventually the piece became a bit longer than that by the way. For production I wanted to do everything by myself, but eventually I decided I probably wasn’t ever going to finish if I didn’t get some help from other animators. So I asked some of our interns at Frame Order to assist on the inbetweening process for some shots.
I ended up doing all the backgrounds, layouts and keyposes myself and probably the animation for two thirds of the piece. The backgrounds were all done in Photoshop and for the animation I used anything that would get the job done, from TvPaint to Moho and ToonBoom Harmony. Of course there were some things were I needed other people’s expertise. Luckily my go to composers Alexander Reumers en Jorrit Kleijnen agreed to write a new score, based on ques from the original music of course and the talented Sander van Wijk took care of the color grading.
Harrison Ford has such distinctive mannerisms and it’s easy to slip into cliche with them. How did you go about creating an animated Indy that felt like Indy but didn’t come across as an impersonation? Any particular film, or scenes, you drew from?
Since there wasn’t much character acting needed for the piece, I mainly focused on getting the pose language right and also the expressions where needed. I would have loved to have gone deeper on this in the process, but I also wanted to keep a certain pace in the production and not turn every shot into a study of Harrison Ford’s acting. After I decided on the look for the character and doing some pose studies, I took it from there, only referencing when I felt it was really necessary.
What are you hoping for from the piece? If it’s a success, would you consider making a complete Indy story (even if just a short)?
Well, as much as I loved working on this, I’m afraid I can’t take it upon me to make another short film like this without any means like a budget or production crew, it’s just too much work and much has changed since I started this. My girlfriend and I had a baby and I’d like my son to like Indiana Jones as well, not regard him as the guy who stole his dad from his childhood.
What’s your personal story with Indy? How did you first encounter the character and what do you like about him?
My father had a huge collection of videotapes and he had a copy of Raiders and later the other Indy films as well. I can’t remember exactly at what age I first saw Raiders, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t of the pg14 age. The scary parts intrigued me, but at the same time scared me to death. It’s safe to say Raiders left a permanent scar on my inner core somewhere. It was really a life changing experience, but for the better. As a kid I just loved the adventure and heroics. When I got older I really started to appreciate the sort of everyman qualities of Indiana Jones. No matter how boring our life is, you can always pick up your gear and go on an adventure. You don’t need to be a superhero to survive. A handful of sand in the eye of your opponent is enough to get you through the day. I also like the way the Indiana Jones stories plant fantastical elements in real world history, making both the fantastical feel more real, but also make history look more romantic.
What’s your favourite Indy film, favourite Indy score, and if Disney ever recast the role, who would you like to see given the part?
When I grew up it was a tie between Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, although Mola Ram’s heart ripping scene probably put Temple of Doom on top. Now that I’m older, I love Raiders the most, since it feels like it takes itself more seriously. It’s a little bit more balanced.
Every Indy score has very memorable parts to me, I love the sense of dread in some of Temple of Doom’s score, but I can also enjoy the lighter bits of Last Crusade. Hearing The Raiders March gets me every time though.
Regarding recasting the role, I always thought Eric Bana could be a good choice. But it’s a tough one, no matter how good the actor, Harrison Ford will always be the one and only Indy for me.
Are there any other pop culture favourite properties you’d like to take on animated versions of?
That’s a good question actually. I try not to think of that because it might create an itch that needs scratching, but there are a couple. There’s this awesome comic called Blacksad which just begs for an animated treatment. It’s not hard to imagine, because it’s illustrated by the extremely talented Juanjo Guarnido, who’s an ex Disney animator, but it would be so cool to see. I would also love to see a Star Wars series, set in the time during the original trilogy, that would be so awesome. And highly necessary if you ask me. Hmm, also Ghostbusters, Goonies, Gremlins. Ok, I need to stop.
Finally, where can people find out more about you, and what’s on your slate next?
At the moment I’d like to get my own projects going again. I have ideas for a series and maybe do another short. My previous short “BINGO!”, which screened in front of Ted 2 here in the Netherlands will also appear online soon. I have a website, www.patrickschoenmaker.com where I post new work regularly. I also have a Facebook page and a Tumblr page, where I post new work regularly.
Huge thanks to Patrick for taking the time for this interview. You can check out the fruits of his efforts online from September 29th.
blakekathryn
prguitarman
izzy806
gummygunk
vaporwave
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines