John Straiton, Interviewed
Interview conducted by Bing Wang with assistance from Tj Alston on April 15th, 2015. The interview was conducted by phone and is reproduced here in full with minor changes made for flow and ease of readability.
Take Two: My first question is, before retirement you were in the advertisement industry, so how did you begin to be interested in film, especially animated filmmaking?
John Straiton: I was interested in filmmaking quite separately from my job. I did commercials and such for advertising. I worked at Ogilby & Paver, places like that when I started young, and the advertising agencies still existed. That was many years ago, and I was doing film work just as a hobby and I did a lot of it. It has always been that what I have achieved I did it all by myself.
Would you explain how you came to do Steam Ballet, which was made in 1968, and what were you trying to accomplish or say with this film?
[laughs] Well, I wasn't accomplishing and trying to say as much. I was interested in entertaining. I made it on 8mm first, and then I thought it was fun enough and I remade it on 16mm … I intended to be there a year between the first time [shot in 8 mm] and the second time [shot in 16mm]. I did it with a hand held camera, so I went around and photographed various things, then I just sliced it together with music. I just had the idea to make the film. I was playing with the idea that short films could be kind of visual ballets at that time, and I thought well here these machines are dancing in a sort of regular movement. So I took it, cut it to the music and it came out quite, I felt, it was entertaining. I also won amateur awards with it.
Would you explain how you came to do Animals in Motion (1968) and what were you trying to accomplish or say with this film?
Well to me, at the time, with Animals in Motion I was learning, I was just trying things out, that's what I was doing, experimenting in film. And I happened to notice that Edwaerd Muybridge (1830 –1904), the man who did the original photographs, put the exact timing of everything down, how many frames there were in seconds and so on, which made it very easy to animate them. I mean they were all in books and pictured out there for me to see, and I just copied them and sequenced by placing them.
I remember the Canadian World spawned at the time and they were pioneering all kinds of songs. I hate throwing themselves but they are playing out horses, screening and so on so I did the same. Again you know they are just little dances to music, that's what they are in a way. I would be able, by picking the right pictures here and there, [to create] a little bit of a story. It had a particular place in my heart, because the pictures came from a book [Animals in Motion (1899) or The Human Figure in Motion (1901)], my uncle had won in an art contest. Well I don't know what it was in Glasgow, Scotland. He had won this prize and I had it sitting around for years looking at it. I felt I was the first to reassemble the still photographs and bring motion out. Again I was entering these amateur film festivals and I was doing it myself, I did everything myself that I could. I had a shot with final productions. I worked with advertising agencies, so I get some professional gluing together done and that sort of thing and sound.
How would you describe your visual aesthetic or style in your early works?
One thing is in every film I tried something different. Portrait of Lydia (1964) was done with pastel and the another one [Eurynome (1970) uses Plasticine]. I would use a different style, it usually had a little joke or a little entertainment quality. I didn't like abstract things very much. When things moved, I usually used music in the motion picture, although most of the time I made the film first and added the music later. It seemed to work. It was only my last few films that I made that I started with the music and then made the pictures to match the music. In fact the first film of consequence, Portrait of Lydia, and I did that, I went through the music and I timed everything. I just used my old record player and timed all the beats, so I know how many frames to draw it. So there was a pattern, an attempt to marry the music and the actions drawn together.
How would you evaluate Toronto independent filmmaking during the late 60s to early 70s? And were there any Canadian filmmakers you were particularly interested in during that time period?
No, I was just touring the place all by myself. So I didn't really know any filmmakers other than people in the commercial world. I made advertising films, so I knew a certain amount. But I tried to learn the stuff myself and I was trying to explore new ways, they were new to me at the time. I heard, for instance, that filmmakers had stopped making films by hand and drawn animated films after the Dinosaur movie, which was originally made in animation, by I forget the name of the man now. He was a cartoonist and he did it all, he did every frame, he did all the of the backgrounds, every picture that worked very well. However, it was a tremendous amount of work and nobody else was interested in doing that kind of thing. I did another film Horseplay in which I did every full frame, I drew it. But I used to pin it up with background stuff to cut down the drawing time.
My last question is, how are you preserving your original films now?
Well all my films I gave over to Madi Piller. Do you know who she is?
No, sorry.
She is the head of [Toronto Animated Image Society]. Anyway, it’s an amateur [association], [including] people who make animated films themselves.
Your films are preserved by an institution now?
Yeah. It's in Quebec. A guy in Quebec who apparently is preserving a lot of stuff.
[Ed note: the following is a concluding thought taken from the interview]
I did it mainly as an amateur, I did it for the fun of it, and I did it to test various ideas. At the same time as I was taking to test, to try a new technique at the same time as I did that I would usually be trying to prove a point to somebody about religion or about things like that. I took great pleasure, I really enjoyed drawing, drawing the background, gathering material together, a real adventure that lasted for 20 years.
John Straiton: I was interested in filmmaking quite separately from my job. I did commercials and such for advertising. I worked at Ogilby & Paver, places like that when I started young, and the advertising agencies still existed. That was many years ago, and I was doing film work just as a hobby and I did a lot of it. It has always been that what I have achieved I did it all by myself.
Would you explain how you came to do Steam Ballet, which was made in 1968, and what were you trying to accomplish or say with this film?
[laughs] Well, I wasn't accomplishing and trying to say as much. I was interested in entertaining. I made it on 8mm first, and then I thought it was fun enough and I remade it on 16mm … I intended to be there a year between the first time [shot in 8 mm] and the second time [shot in 16mm]. I did it with a hand held camera, so I went around and photographed various things, then I just sliced it together with music. I just had the idea to make the film. I was playing with the idea that short films could be kind of visual ballets at that time, and I thought well here these machines are dancing in a sort of regular movement. So I took it, cut it to the music and it came out quite, I felt, it was entertaining. I also won amateur awards with it.
Would you explain how you came to do Animals in Motion (1968) and what were you trying to accomplish or say with this film?
Well to me, at the time, with Animals in Motion I was learning, I was just trying things out, that's what I was doing, experimenting in film. And I happened to notice that Edwaerd Muybridge (1830 –1904), the man who did the original photographs, put the exact timing of everything down, how many frames there were in seconds and so on, which made it very easy to animate them. I mean they were all in books and pictured out there for me to see, and I just copied them and sequenced by placing them.
I remember the Canadian World spawned at the time and they were pioneering all kinds of songs. I hate throwing themselves but they are playing out horses, screening and so on so I did the same. Again you know they are just little dances to music, that's what they are in a way. I would be able, by picking the right pictures here and there, [to create] a little bit of a story. It had a particular place in my heart, because the pictures came from a book [Animals in Motion (1899) or The Human Figure in Motion (1901)], my uncle had won in an art contest. Well I don't know what it was in Glasgow, Scotland. He had won this prize and I had it sitting around for years looking at it. I felt I was the first to reassemble the still photographs and bring motion out. Again I was entering these amateur film festivals and I was doing it myself, I did everything myself that I could. I had a shot with final productions. I worked with advertising agencies, so I get some professional gluing together done and that sort of thing and sound.
How would you describe your visual aesthetic or style in your early works?
One thing is in every film I tried something different. Portrait of Lydia (1964) was done with pastel and the another one [Eurynome (1970) uses Plasticine]. I would use a different style, it usually had a little joke or a little entertainment quality. I didn't like abstract things very much. When things moved, I usually used music in the motion picture, although most of the time I made the film first and added the music later. It seemed to work. It was only my last few films that I made that I started with the music and then made the pictures to match the music. In fact the first film of consequence, Portrait of Lydia, and I did that, I went through the music and I timed everything. I just used my old record player and timed all the beats, so I know how many frames to draw it. So there was a pattern, an attempt to marry the music and the actions drawn together.
How would you evaluate Toronto independent filmmaking during the late 60s to early 70s? And were there any Canadian filmmakers you were particularly interested in during that time period?
No, I was just touring the place all by myself. So I didn't really know any filmmakers other than people in the commercial world. I made advertising films, so I knew a certain amount. But I tried to learn the stuff myself and I was trying to explore new ways, they were new to me at the time. I heard, for instance, that filmmakers had stopped making films by hand and drawn animated films after the Dinosaur movie, which was originally made in animation, by I forget the name of the man now. He was a cartoonist and he did it all, he did every frame, he did all the of the backgrounds, every picture that worked very well. However, it was a tremendous amount of work and nobody else was interested in doing that kind of thing. I did another film Horseplay in which I did every full frame, I drew it. But I used to pin it up with background stuff to cut down the drawing time.
My last question is, how are you preserving your original films now?
Well all my films I gave over to Madi Piller. Do you know who she is?
No, sorry.
She is the head of [Toronto Animated Image Society]. Anyway, it’s an amateur [association], [including] people who make animated films themselves.
Your films are preserved by an institution now?
Yeah. It's in Quebec. A guy in Quebec who apparently is preserving a lot of stuff.
[Ed note: the following is a concluding thought taken from the interview]
I did it mainly as an amateur, I did it for the fun of it, and I did it to test various ideas. At the same time as I was taking to test, to try a new technique at the same time as I did that I would usually be trying to prove a point to somebody about religion or about things like that. I took great pleasure, I really enjoyed drawing, drawing the background, gathering material together, a real adventure that lasted for 20 years.