"I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then, I'm comin' back here to go to college and see what they know. And then I'm gonna build things. I'm gonna build airfields, I'm gonna build skyscrapers a hundred stories high, I'm gonna build bridges a mile long..."
— George Bailey, It’s a Wonderful Life
"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"
— Clarence, It’s A Wonderful Life
Say what you will about It’s a Wonderful Life, the film most associated with chintzy holiday tidings, a regular dope fix for Xmas. It’s awash with corn and features everything from angels to Auld Lang Syne. It’s a film that reflects us so well as a society: No matter how much shit is around us, we want to squint so hard to make it seem like flowers. But if you take the angels and deux ex machina sing-along away, it’s actually an astutely dark vision of the world with some lessons to be learned.
One message from the film that has always struck me is the importance of community. While the character George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) spends almost the entire movie trying to escape his town, he eventually learns that there’s nothing wrong with staying where he is. He sees that he needs his community and that it needs him.
I’ve often felt like George Bailey and I relate to his conflict. I was born in Ottawa and, except for one year, I’ve lived here my whole life. I used to bemoan it and dream of living in another city, one filled with a ready-made culture and unknown possibilities. It was a strange attitude given that I’ve got a successful life and good family here in Ottawa. I travel the world regularly, so what more could the “big cities” offer me?
A still image from The Waif of Persephone
My attitude changed entirely one day at Collected Works bookstore, where I was giving a reading from one of my books. I knew one of the guys who worked there—Peter Schneider—and he said something that has never left me. He said that he admired me and my wife Kelly (together we run the Ottawa International Animation Festival) for staying in Ottawa, for creating a culture here instead of escaping to another town and latching on to the existing scene. Peter had no idea what that meant to me, but from that moment I took a different kind of pride in Ottawa. And hell, I liked myself a little more for sticking with this often frustrating big town.
Which brings us to one of Ottawa’s most talented animators, Nick Cross. Nick, for all his success (including his incredible new short The Waif of Persephone which opened this year’s festival), has also remained in Ottawa. Sure, Cross is originally from Brampton, but it’s still nice to see someone stick it out rather than run for the bright lights of elsewhere. And it’s particularly special to me because I’ve watched Nick’s career evolve from his first film—a Bergman parody he called Tea for Two (1999).
Nick, you see, is both an extremely modest fella and a highly skilled artist who could likely work anywhere he desired. Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi (a renowned animator and himself an Ottawa native) calls Nick “my genius find here up north.” With such high praise, why on earth does Cross stay put?
“Well—it’s weird,” says Cross, “because all my paid work is done either in L.A. or Toronto, now. I haven’t worked in any studios in Ottawa for three years. But I don’t know, I have a house here, and everything’s done over the Internet. Everyone keeps telling me I should move to Toronto or to wherever. I think Ottawa’s good ‘cause it’s sort of isolated. Every time you go into a studio, it just feels like, ugh. I just work at home. It’s so much nicer.”
A still image from The Waif of Persephone
Snobbery at Sheridan
Typical of virtually every independent animator in Canada, Cross never had any desire to become an animator. Though his education started in illustration at Toronto’s Sheridan College—one of the most famous animation schools in the world—“I always hated animation at Sheridan,” he says. “I was always interested in animation, but I actually got turned off by all the snobbery when I went to Sheridan.”
Cross studied illustration there for three years but when he couldn’t find any work he headed to Ottawa on the advice of a friend. Dynomight Cartoons, a fledgling animation studio, was looking for people with illustration backgrounds. On the recommendation of that friend, Cross was hired. He packed his things and moved to the capital.
Dynomight provided Cross’ with an instant education in animation, but it was also a tedious experience. He did layout and backgrounds on a stream of lousy TV shows (e.g., Rupert the Bear). But while watching a short film made by some colleagues, Cross got the idea that he could make his own films.
“Two guys at the studio had just put together this little short film called The Untalkative Bunny. So, we were just watching it one day and they were telling me how they just made it on a computer. I’m like, ‘I could do that!’ I thought, well, I’m just going to teach myself animation, then.”
Cross’ first film, Tea for Two was a parody of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (a favourite target of parodists) that featured a farmer (modeled on author William Burroughs) and his rabbit sitting in the living room discussing existentialism in fake Swedish with English subtitles. It’s a very simple premise, but the film showed an artist with strong drawing skills and a good sense of comic timing.
Following the success of Tea for Two (it was picked up by U.S. broadcaster/distributor), Cross’ path was paved with gold … Okay, no, not quite. Doesn’t work that way for animators, especially independent ones. Life just went back to normal for Cross, except now he had the filmmaking bug.
Cross spent a total of five years at Dynomight and managed to make a couple more short films. In U-Girl and The Red Scarf the “doodling” style of Tea for Two gives way to a distinctive 1930s kind of animation and a more confident artistic touch. Cross adds his own distinctive and subtle humour to the mix and, as in most of his films, there’s always a feeling of something sinister going on, even if it’s not explicit in the action.
Dynomight went bankrupt, but Cross’ artist path took a positive turn when he was given a chance to work with John Kricfalusi, who had returned to Ottawa to produce his new series The Ripping Friends with Funbag animation studio.
“John came to town and started working on Ripping Friends,” recalls Cross. “They were hiring students right out of Algonquin. My girlfriend went to Algonquin and her friends had jobs [at Funbag], so they said, come here. And so I went in with her, basically. They hired us both at the same time.”
When production started on the new Ren and Stimpy series, Cross started working for Kricfalusi directly.
“I always had a good time working for him. He’s really demanding. He’d tell you he doesn’t like something. It changes the way you sort of draw. All of a sudden, you see how to draw the stuff that was developed in the thirties and forties. It’s just kind of like being around a person who’s actually studied that stuff, you know.”
The experience with Kricfalusi had a strong influence on Cross’ personal work. When he created the poster for the 2003 Ottawa International Animation Festival, I remember being immediately struck by the Kricfalusi-inspired touches, notably in the character design.
Cross readily admits the influence, knowing it’s also not unusual or necessarily a negative thing for an artist who was primarily self-taught. Cross has learned to absorb influences and make them his own. That’s what any good artist does.
If there were any doubts about his unique talent, Cross vanquished them with his most recent and ambitious film, Waif of Persephone. Six years in the making (not because it is an epic project, but because Cross needed a paycheque and had to take regular breaks) Persephone is his most accomplished work yet. Mixing old cartoons, mythology, and the literary work of Dante, Persephone is a roller coaster ride that is, much like films by David Lynch, simultaneously hilarious and disturbing as hell.
“That would be horrible”
Cross has achieved a rare balance of paid and personal work that few animators can claim. I’ve had no shortage of students assure me that after they graduate they will get a good paying job at a studio for a while and continue their own work at night and on weekends. Rarely does this pan out.
So, why does Cross bother? Why continue to punch and jab for a bunch of short films that hardly anyone will see in the end? Why not just take a job at a studio with a Mr. Potter or work with a Sam Wainwright—two fastidious dudes from It’s a Wonderful Life—and be done with it?
“No! No! That would be horrible,” Cross says. “I just can’t stand working for studios. I just have to do something of my own. I get more satisfaction just doing short films. I just like working on my own… Maybe it’s really arrogant, something like that, ‘cause I just like doing my own things and having my control of things. I just do it to please myself, you know.”
As someone who has battled the “life is elsewhere” (i.e., not Ottawa) syndrome almost daily, it’s refreshing, rare (hear that Alanis and Tom?) and encouraging to know a guy like Cross. You hope that his determination and willingness to plant his seeds in Ottawa will inspire other talented local artists to do the same.
We’re just fine here. We don’t need wise old Clarence, the heavens, or another goddamn rendition of Auld Lang Syne. People not angels build communities.
