A conversation with the man in the moon: William Joyce and “The Guardians of Childhood”
Much like his protagonists, storyteller William Joyce has a dream. To realize it, he has devoted his professional life to fairytale adventures, something few grown-ups can get away with. I classify Joyce as a storyteller because that is his ultimate goal; within that, he is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, author, illustrator, inventor, designer, and computer animator. He wears costumes to speak at literary conventions and dedicates his books to King Kong and his mother-in-law, whom he enigmatically insists is “nothing like a frog.” Joyce doesn’t think outside the box; he simply refuses to acknowledge it exists. “As far as I’m concerned there is no box. If one of my protagonists saw this box everyone talks about, they’d just walk right through it,” he chuckles. “I refute the box.” And so he has, turning nighttime stories into elegantly illustrated picture books (Dinosaur Bob, Bentley and the Egg), books into movies and TV series (Meet the Robinsons, Rolie Polie Olie), sketches into unforgettable characters (A Bug’s Life, Toy Story), films into interactive story applications on the Ipad (The Fantastical Flying Books of Mr. Morris), and the innocent dilemmas of his characters into tales of epic grandeur.
Joyce’s newest and most ambitious project yet is the Guardians of Childhood, a multimedia story series about a group of heroes that come together to protect the dreams of children everywhere. You may know these protectors today by names like the Man in the Moon, Jack Frost, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy, but each one has a story to tell, and it will take all of them working together to defeat a dark supervillain, the King of Nightmares. Joyce and his all-star team at Moonbot studios in Shreveport are in the process of constructing the Guardians’ universe through a three-pronged effort: picture books, novels, and a 3-D feature film produced by Dreamworks called Rise of the Guardians, slated to come out in November of 2012.
Hot off the press this fall is the first installment of the exquisitely illustrated 12-part picture book series, The Man in the Moon. MiM, as he is known to most, is a lovable creature born into a Golden Age, but his peaceful life is shattered when his dear friend Nightlight must do battle against Pitch, the King of Nightmares. Their luminous world is thrown into a deep indigo darkness, and MiM is left alone, floating above planet Earth in his moon-shaped spaceship from which he can see the hopes and wishes of children across the world. MiM observes that in their darkest times, most children long for something simple like a treat or a good story, so he assembles a team of Guardians to make the lives of Earth’s wee ones a little brighter.
“The books take place a long time before the movie does,” Joyce explains. “The picture books tell the story of each Guardian. The novels are a series of interlocking stories about when the Guardians start working together, and the movie is set in the present day, when they all come together to do battle against the Nightmare King,” he says.
Guardians of Childhood is a pet project that Joyce has been toying with for the past 12 years. “The bigger it got, the more daunting it became. I had a general idea of the structure, and I approached various publishing houses and film companies, but they only made it more confusing and complicated. One would say ‘We love the film, but we won’t do the books,’ and another would say, ‘Well, we can do the film and the novels but only three picture books, and we have to approve every step.’”
“Finally, I sat down with Dreamworks. They actually flew down here to Shreveport, which was kind of different,” he says. “It was 2008 and I was working like crazy on the stories. I was telling them through the eyes of the two children from Santa Calls, and I was having trouble simplifying the story. Jeffrey Katzenberg (Dreamworks CEO) said, ‘Why don’t you lose the kids and focus on the Guardians?’ And that was the key. It made so much sense. Then, he said that we could do the movie and as many books as I wanted,” Joyce smiles. “It’s hard to find people that are brave enough to try something different, but once you do, you thank your lucky stars and start running.”
In describing his style of animation, Joyce says, “It’s classical but new. There’s a Victorian dizzyness, but at the same time I wanted it to be very contained, so subtle it’s almost like method acting. It will haunt you not just for fun and laughs but in a deep way that focuses on all of your childhood dreams and fears—like The Wizard of Oz. That movie gets inside people’s heads and hearts in a way that few movies do. It seems to touch people on some broad, universal level. There’s this sense of silliness and hope and possibility, and at the heart of it is an innocent, emotional, strong idea: Dorothy wants to go home. You have all sorts of incredible and terrifying things that go on, and those things are what make us feel for Dorothy. That’s why you have to put a bit of darkness in any good story. The Wizard of Oz wasn’t a travelogue—you actually fear for Dorothy’s safety. Kids love to be scared, just enough. With the character of Pitch, we hoped to have a villain with the same mesmerizing grandeur of evil as the Wicked Witch.”
Becoming a storyteller doesn’t just happen by making a wish and clicking your heels together three times. Joyce, like his favorite characters, has laid his own yellow brick road. “I don’t try to think like a child. I just stay open to possibility. My characters are all devoted to a dream or a set of values and they stick with them against the tide. If you’ve ever watched Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or You Can’t Take it With You, they are equally dramatic and comedic. They’re about these guys who have a simple, decent view of life, and larger powers come into play that try to make them change, and they say, ‘No, I’m perfectly happy. I don’t want fame, riches, or power. I just want to do the right thing.’ Naiveté with conviction can be quite powerful,” he says. “What’s the point of being cautious? It’s not as much fun. I’m a little bit reckless…but it works, doesn’t it?”
Yes, I believe it does. Characters like MiM, Buzz Lightyear, and Joyce live in my heart long after I switch off the television or close the book. They are the stuff that dreams are made of. ✦
