During the process of making Terminal Bar did you find out a lot about your father and his ten-year stint at the bar that you did not know before?

Ummm� I found out stories that sort of defined him more; cement what I already know about him, as far as character. But [LAUGHS]� there were no revelations.

Terminal Bar seems a very complicated film to make, how long did it take you piece together so many fragment and images?

The process took about a year. It was something that I was doing after work. I would come home and work on it, nights and weekends. I worked on it pretty hard, pretty intensely, for about a year. Six months of it was just preparation � getting all the assets together � and the next six months was the actual animation part, and sound and stuff like that.

Terminal Bar has a vibrancy that is perhaps lacking in some documentary shorts until recently. Do you have any favourite filmmakers or web animators?

I was a web animator � that's how I got involved and sort of realised I could do it. The reason it was that dynamic was because I wanted it to be completely like the anti-documentary of what you'd see normally on PBS or something. I wanted to add some vibrancy to it. The opposite of what you would expect.
As far as influences go� I like Errol Morris's work � that kind of stuff spoke to me.

Do you still catch Resfest?

My work has sort of intersected with Resfest over the years. And they bring me back in � I did this little project for Nike that was peripherally involved with Res. And the Nike commissioned film was screened at Resfest. I've been involved with the festival pretty much every year since 2000 in some way or form. Those guys are great: I like the audience, I like their aesthetic.

Do you go to short screenings much or do you mainly download?

It's a total download for me. Everything I could possibly want or need is available online somewhere. I really don't get out that much and go to festivals. I know that festivals have great work � its just I don't have the patience to get off my ass and go out there.

It must have been gratifying to have such a large response to Terminal Bar?

Well, yeah � it's been very gratifying. It wasn't unexpected, because I knew that when I was working on it, that it was going to be just so intense, so personal, it was going to be different, I knew it. Somebody would recognise it in some way. But not to the degree that it did. I knew that it would get played, but not to that extent. I have to say it was a pleasant surprise.

What was it like meeting Roger Ebert and having him take you picture at Sundance? Was it quite surreal?

Totally. The lead up to the award ceremony was just totally surreal. I was at a filmmaker breakfast and I saw Roger Ebert walking by, and I was like "Oh shit I wish I had a video tape" so I would run over there and give it to him. So then I went back and got a video tape � and at the award ceremony after, there he was, and I just pulled out the tape and gave it to him � and he was like "oh cool", and took a picture. He watched it and wrote about it.

Ebert said Terminal Bar was "like a text book on applied alcoholism" � do you agree?

He hit the nail on the head, because that's my Dad's mantra about the whole thing. He always goes back to that point, "Well, that's what you get from drinking!"

Who was the most memorable character you met from your short film Tourist Pictures?

The ones that you see are the ones that stand out. And those are the cream of the crop. I guess the skater was the first one in Missouri � he was a little crazy. But actually the first guy, at the Statue of Liberty, he went on for about half an hour about America! It was crazy � I couldn't believe it. There was just so much of it on tape. He was a little bit out there.

Do you think you will continue in the same visual record keeping style?

Yeah � I mean � with Tourist Pictures, the whole idea of taking pictures, saving them, organising them� its like why do you take pictures in the first place? So that kind of fascinates me. But for the most part I've been doing animated films and animated commercial work rather than documentary. It's a total creative decision, because that's what I love to do. My goal isn't to do documentaries. That came to me because my Dad had all these great pictures and great stores, and was seemingly willing to be interviewed to get this stuff shown. So I was an opportunity and I seized it. But that doesn't mean I'm destined to become a documentary filmmaker.

What is your next film project?   

I'm currently finishing my next short film, its going to be around five minutes. And it's going to premiere at Resfest for their ten year anniversary, so again I go back to the mothership!

Will Terminal Bar be continued as the end credits promise, and will it be sooner rather than later?

It's always a question of time. As for "sooner rather than later"� I had started, and then some work will come in, then I'll put it on the shelf, and then I'll start it again, start it differently. I have all these ideas about it � so I think its going to be later than sooner. I have all the material. It'll get out there, just when? I don't know.

www.touristpictures.com