Jerry Levitan was 14 yrs old when he skipped school to find & interview John Lennon. You could say this kid was quite a fan; and intelligent and brave. Lennon was staying in Toronto and Levitan had takena guess as to where Lennon would be staying. He went to the top floor and knocked on every door. The maid told him where he would find the Beatle. It was 7am. Levitan sneaked in and made himself comfortable in the room with Yoko Ono and John Lennon in front of him. He convinced Lennon to do an interview about Peace, which lasted 40 minutes. Here is the short animation with the original interview recording, visually conducted with pen and digital illustration.
“… if we really want to change it, we can change it.”
“… ask ‘em to show you one revolution that turned out to be what it promised militantly.”
“… the thing is to protest, protest non-violently.”
This short film has won numerous awards and was up for the 2008 Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film.
What I would like to know is when will the rest of the audio be released?
2007 Canada
DIRECTOR Josh Raskin
PRODUCER Jerry Levitan
SCREENWRITER Josh Raskin
PEN ILLUSTRATOR James Braithwaite (very cool website done in Flash …my favorite is when you click on biography and the little man falls)
ANIMATOR Josh Raskin
STARRING John Lennon, Jerry Levitan
Great film, I was shocked at the quality of the animation. Here’s another new Lennon video, a previously unreleased peace seminar from 1969.
This is too cool… As a Beatles obsessionist, this is particularly fascinating to me. “New” interviews are always exciting because you usually hear the same old stuff over and over again. Plus, the animation had a distinctly “Yellow Submarine”-ish feel to them, at least in style. Complimented it well. Thanks for sharing.