I recently reviewed the film Boys Go to Jupiter, which is an absolute delight. After the review was posted, I was excited to learn I had the opportunity to interview the film’s writer/director/producer/composer Julian Glander. He and I sat down for a chat about the film, how music can add texture, and about how animation can tell a story with depth.
Zach Youngs: What is the film that made you want to be a filmmaker?
Julian Glander: Honestly, [growing up] I was really into music and that was more what I thought I would do. I didn’t really start thinking about being a filmmaker until Movie Pass. I had Movie Pass in 2017 and 2018 and I went to the movies everyday with my friends. It was such a special time and it was such a special social thing to do, but it also got me seeing things I wouldn’t have gone and seen otherwise. One of the things I saw was this Chinese animated film called Have a Nice Day. The animation I’ve always been drawn to is the animation where you can see how it’s done. People often talk about animation as being very magical, but this was a movie where you could see every frame and every drawing. It was almost like a Flash cartoon from the early 2000s. I went home from watching it like, maybe an animated film could be something other than the $100 million films that we all know and love.
ZY: What is it about animation that made you really want to do it?
JG: It’s the power to control time and space. The ability to always tinker with everything and, in theory, always get everything the way you want it is what drew me into it. It’s funny because it’s not actually like that. As you’re animating, and certainly as you’re working in 3D, as much as you try to fancy yourself as master of the universe, you’re constantly being surprised by things. I’ve worked on a few live action sets and I hated going home and being like we didn’t get what we needed today, we’ll never have those actors again and we’ll never have the light again. With animation you kind of don’t have that. You can just work it forever. You can leave things alone and come back to them years later and nobody’s gotten any older, they’re just 3D models.
ZY: Do you ever feel like maybe you would want to switch to live action at some point?
JG: Never say never. If I could live to be a billion years old I would try everything in the world and I would love to do live action, but I think there’s still so much to do in animation. Sometimes there’s talk among animation filmmakers of it being a stepping stone to directing action movies or a place to kind of slum it. I just never felt that way. I just never understood or related to people who felt that way. I think for me it’s really the greatest art form there is. It combines everything in such a cool way.
ZY: Where did the idea for Boys Go to Jupiter come from?
JG: In the pandemic I was really thinking a lot about work and especially thinking about delivery drivers. I had gotten a contactless delivery from one of the food services and the new ritual that had just debuted is they would take a picture of the food after they dropped it off. This happened to a lot of people, I got one of those pictures where I was in the picture. I wasn’t supposed to be, but I was looking through the blinds and I was looking like a ghost. I think that image of being dehumanized, the fact that everyone in the process is dehumanized and we’ve taken away this sacred relationship from the person who prepares food and the person who eats it was the jumping off point into what ended up being a very silly story that goes into a lot of different places.
ZY: Through its characters the film poses a few of economic theories. Did you see the film not as a statement against capitalism, but a way of posing these ideas?
JG: Along the way the movie has been tagged as anti-capitalist I think because it’s a conversation we all want to have right now. I actually think the movie sits in capitalism and my way into each of these characters was to think about their different relationships with work and money. Specifically what work was giving these people, or promising these people. For instance in the case of Herschel Cretaceous (Joe Pera) who’s running his father’s dinosaur themed [mini-golf course], from work he’s getting a sense of legacy and purpose. Our main character Billy (Jack Corbett) is trying to get a sense of security from it. Other characters are getting power, identity, or something else. I think each of them is seeing one tiny piece of the picture and nobody is seeing the whole thing, which is kind of a great engine for interpersonal conflict.
ZY: I like the way that comes out when Herschel gives Billy a compliment and immediately asks for one in return.
JG: That’s funny because that’s a line that is not that funny on paper, but I think Joe Pera’s voice completely sells it. Since the pandemic there are new scripts we’re supposed to follow. Certainly the delivery driver script is one that has been rewritten. It was known for a hundred years that you would answer the door and give somebody a tip. Now it’s different and oftentimes we don’t know what the new rules are or what the new ways to communicate with people are. I found myself anguishing over that a lot, but it’s also pretty funny.
ZY: Did you ever want the film to be a full-fledged, sing out your feelings musical?
JG: That’s exactly what I didn’t want to do. I’ve kind of been running my mouth about this for years because why does every musical have to be the Broadway thing? There are so many other ways of singing and making music. I don’t love every musical, but I love The Wizard of Oz, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Grease. I really like when a musical has a strong musical point of view. The point of view that we developed for this movie was I wanted to look at the physical things in the movie and make sounds that match them. Miya Folick has a song where she has bees swarming around her so there’s a buzzing synth underneath her vocals and she’s in a factory so the beat is very industrial and you have computer sounds. When she starts singing about Christmas you have sleigh bells coming in. I almost thought of music as another textural element to fill it out. It kind of is a musical, but I’ve been wary of that because people who like musicals probably won’t like this movie and people who don’t like musicals would be scared away and they’re the people who I think would get a little more out of it.
ZY: When you were making the movie did you want to make it appealing to a broad audience or did you have specific people in mind?
JG: I think I had a microaudience of me, my producer Peisin [Yang Lazo], and my wife who were the people who I was sharing the whole thing with. I think the first big phase of writing for me was all about getting the imaginary audience member off my shoulder and the imaginary development person off my other shoulder. Both of those people who I had made up in my head were saying, “You can’t have the ending be like this. You can’t have this character say that.” It’s a funny paradox because this movie is definitely not a for everyone movie. It’s for a very specific kind of viewer, but because of that it’s actually resonating more. That specific kind of viewer is really underserved. There are certain audiences who get a movie that’s just for them every week and then there are people who want something that’s just a little more out there, a little more patient, a little more atmospheric where it’s more of a treat when something like this comes along.
ZY: How do you feel about the year end awards process and do you think you will make a push for Boys Go to Jupiter?
JG: I guess it is time to start thinking about that. I like the awards. I like the fun of the awards season. I usually have an Oscar pool with my friends. I certainly never, until quite recently, thought about participating as a filmmaker. Who knows? It’s kind of out of my hands. I’ve done my part, which is to make the movie.
ZY: What is next for you?
JG: I am quite superstitious about this so I will not really tell you anything. I will say I’ve been writing another film. What else? I moved and I started a new garden. I find myself turning into two characters from the movie. One is the old lady played by Cole Escola who has her pet chickens because I have pet ducks and then I’m also turning into the main antagonist of the movie Dr. Dolphin (Janeane Garofalo) the obsessive citrus engineer because I have a lemon tree and a lime tree that I am desperately trying to keep alive. That’s my big project right now is looking at these little one foot tall trees and trying to figure out what’s wrong with them.
