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Rosa Tran has a really engaging piece on Medium, giving us the producer's perspective on making a stop motion indie feature.

I may not know the rules to the Game of Thrones or what happened to Shia LaBeouf, but I can tell you exactly when the binder will run out on the 3D printer. When it finally rains in LA, I can tell you exactly where the leaks will be in the building. I can tell where to go to buy more fabric to make more of Lisa’s shirts. I can tell you that you are doing a great job and I can’t pay you your full rate but we need you on our team.

When I look back at all of our challenges, I say to myself, “was I on a reality show?” I don’t even know how to share this experience. I don’t know how to convey the level of stress, the feeling of uncertainty, the fear that at any minute everything that we’ve devoted ourselves to will come crashing down.

Making a stop motion indie feature is guerrilla film making, times 10. What can I fix using duct tape? How can you reuse the duct tape? How can you fix something without any money? How can I BE creative?

Well I found that being nice gets you a long way AND sending a vendor a dozen cheese rolls from Porto’s in place of a very late past due payment can get you some more time. (Source)

Here's a great hour-long interview with Charlie and Duke, cinematographer Joe Passarelli, and producer Rosa Tran.

The interview's preceded by a 10-minute featurette about the puppet sex scene. [Edit: In the time since I watched the clip earlier today, it seems the featurette has been excised from the clip. Sorry! Originally it was 1:08:07 in length, and now it's 0:57:33]

[Update: computer has been resurrected. All good now.]

I live 2 streets from a beach, and corrosion from salt air tends to kill my computers before their time.

A moment of silence, please, for the latest victim.

Hopefully it can be repaired. Meanwhile, updating the site via mobile is a pain in the butt, but I'll do what I can.

Suzette Smith from the Portland Mercury has been watching Charlie's films stoned, and blogging the results. Someone had to do it, right? She has worked her way through all six of Charlie's films (including Confessions and Human Nature!) in the lead-up to Anomalisa. Here's part of Synecdoche:

Okay, I immediately regret watching this movie stoned. I feel like I’m missing a lot of important things, but I’m also unable to hold back that sinking feeling that accompanies conceptualizing the inevitable decline of existence. That’s my toast and tea when I’m not stoned. Shit!

[...] He’s dead, right? People keep saying stuff like: "Then you died." But they also tell him he abandoned his family when clearly his wife left him. The passage of time is suspicious. That also leads me to believe he’s dead.

[...] When I was done watching Synecdoche, New York I was still high and I felt like shit. My notes are: "I don’t know how I’m going to write about this. I want to put down my notes and walk away." (Source)

There are links to the other films in that post.

This interview between Charlie, Duke Johnson and Ty Burr amuses me.

TB: I wanted to do something different with this interview, something a little “meta.” And my first question is, when you hear a reporter say “I want to do something different with this interview, something a little meta,” what emotion do you feel?

CK: Panic.

Duke Johnson: Numbness.

[...]

TB: What are the questions you don’t want asked about this project? The ones you dread.

[...]

DJ: “Why did this have to be animated?” It’s like —

CK: Asking “Why did this have to be live-action”?

DJ: Exactly. Why did you paint this picture with oil paints?

CK: Why did it have to be oil?

DJ: Why is it not watercolor?

CK: Why is it not Impressionistic? Why didn’t you do it in Photorealism?

DJ: Because that’s how I [expletive] painted it.

[...]

TB: “Anomalisa” name-checks and explores the Fregoli delusion[...] Are there other clinical delusions you’d like to make movies about? [...] Reduplicative paramnesia. Do you know what that is?

CK: No, but I like it. (Source)

Also a sad update on Frank or Francis:

CK: It’s not happening as far as I know. I want it to. We’ve been trying to raise money. No one’s interested.

And sad news for people who type things on the internet and would like to hear from the Kauf:

CK: I would never interact with somebody online.

New Anomalisa featurette, in which the cast and Duke Johnson praise Charlie and his script:

The IMDB will be talking with Charlie and Duke Johnson on Twitter, Jan. 15 at 2pm PT. Got a question for them? Hit 'em up with the #IMDbAskAnomalisa tag.

We're chatting w/ #Anomalisa directors @Dukulele & Charlie Kaufman Jan. 15 at 2pm PT! Send Q's to #IMDbAskAnomalisa pic.twitter.com/k09NF98XKY

— IMDb (@IMDb) January 14, 2016

Nominations for the 2016 Oscars were announced today and, as expected, Anomalisa is up for Best Animated Feature. It sits alongside Boy and the World, Inside Out, Shaun the Sheep Movie and When Marnie Was There. Everyone's tipping Inside Out, but let's cross our fingers for an upset!

Alas, no other nominations for the film, and no nomination for Charlie's script. The Best Adapted Screenplay category includes The Big Short, Brooklyn, Carol, The Martian and Room.

You can check out the full list of nominees here.

BCK frequenter Tim paid a visit to the Arclight cinema in Hollywood, where some of Anomalisa's sets are on display, and he sent in these snaps, for the benefit of we poor souls who cannot make the trek:

So detailed. You wouldn't know they were so small, eh?

And it's fantastic. Marc Maron covers a lot of ground with Charlie, and again Charlie seems a bit more open and relaxed than we've heard him in the past. They discuss Anomalisa, obviously, and the rest of his filmography, Charlie's beef with George Clooney, his brief acting career, Charlie's family, Get A Life, Charlie's earliest days in TV... If you haven't heard much about Charlie's past, or you've read about it and you'd like it from the source's mouth, you'll like this.

The interview with Charlie starts neat the 13:25 mark. Duke Johnson joins in near 47:15.

I don't think I can embed the file. Here's the link.

Big thanks to Michael!